A Connecticut mom expressed hopelessness about having to pass up on holiday shopping this year upon finding out that her six-year-old child spent more than $16K on in-app purchases.
A mom recently found out that the $16K missing from her bank account was not because of fraud after all but was spent by her six-year-old son for in-app purchases of a game he was playing since summer. In an interview with a news outlet, Jessica Johnson, a resident of Wilton, Connecticut, said she noticed some unknown charges on her Chase bank account for some time. She asked the bank about it and they informed her that they would investigate the matter. She did not have any idea that her six-year-old son, George, is using her account for in-app purchases in his favorite game, "Sonic Force."
Jessica said that over the past summer, George quietly accumulated more than $16K in charges at Apple's App Store for "Sonic Force" in-app purchases. The mom, who worked as a real estate broker was unaware that her six-year-old was spending thousands of her money through her iPad, which George constantly borrows to play his favorite video game.
Based on the accounts of George, who finally told his mom what happened, he bought add-on boosters worth $1.99 for red rings and $99.99 for the gold rings. These boosters gave his "Sonic Force" character special advantages and speed. In July, George spent around $2,500 while Jessica sat in the next room, unaware that her six-year old is using her money for in-app purchases. When she noticed several hundred dollars disappear from her account, she called the bank to investigate. She admitted feeling confused at the time since the charges are not itemized. "The way the charges get bundled made it almost impossible [to figure out that] they were from a game. It's like my 6-year-old was doing lines of cocaine and doing bigger and bigger hits," Jessica said.
Even when the total missing amount hit around $16,293, Mrs. Johnson was still clueless that it was George using all that money. Finally, in October her bank called and informed her that the charges on her account were legitimate. They also advised her to call Apple. When Jessica contacted Apple, they revealed to her the cause of all those charges, and it was only then that she discovered her six-year-old spent all that $16K in "Sonic Force" in-app purchases. The Cupertino-based tech giant told her there was nothing they could do about the incident.
"They told me that because I didn't call within 60 days of the charges, that they can't do anything. The reason I didn't call within 60 days is that Chase told me it was likely fraud that PayPal and Apple.com are top fraud charges," Mrs. Johnson said. An Apple customer service informed the Connecticut mom her iPad has a security setting she can enable to prevent her six-year-old from spending any amount, in this case, 16K, on "Sonic Force" in-app purchases. "These games are designed to be completely predatory and get kids to buy things, What grown-up would spend $100 on a chest of virtual gold coins?" the exasperated mom said.
