5-year-old spendthrift + 5minutes in app store = $2500 bill for mom & dad

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JoeD

Steve: It was "accidental" in that he likely didn't know he was spending real money to acquire the items. Too many games on the app store make it less than obvious that real money is involved and if you're in the window of just having entered your password (which most people are when they download a free app to let their kid play for a few minutes) the costs will quickly mount up.

It might be that where you spend coins earned in the game to buy new ammo/weapons there's an extra button that lets the player seemingly get them without needing any coins. Little do they realise their parents are footing the bill.

I think a small child may well realise not what is happening, but every in-app purchase, no matter how it is represented in-game, triggers a standard system confirmation popup saying exactly what the cost would be.

[NickyWithNook]

Some games let you "buy" stuff with pretend money, and kids as young as 5 won't necessarily be able to tell the difference.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Credit to Apple though for agreeing to refund the money.

Agreed. That said, it should only be a one time thing for Apple to refund the money. If it happens again, I say the parents should have to pay up.

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

Agreed. That said, it should only be a one time thing for Apple to refund the money. If it happens again, I say the parents should have to pay up.

Another option is that Apple can refund the unused portion of the in app purchase and disable the remainder of the in app purchase. There's no good reason for them to deny the refund, within a certain period after the purchase, since they have everything locked down with DRM.

[xg4bx]

This is why when I have kids I'm setting up an Atari for them if they want to play games. It was good enough for me as a kid and I certainly won't need to worry about app stores or extraneous purchases.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I think a small child may well realise not what is happening, but every in-app purchase, no matter how it is represented in-game, triggers a standard system confirmation popup saying exactly what the cost would be.

and tap, it's gone and the kid is back in the game using those coins/strawberries/buckets of stars until they run out and want some more or decide to stock up on loads at once.

The first time the parents may know about it may well be when the email confirmations start to arrive (I don't think they're immediate but delayed and batched) or when they next check their CC.

Even if a parent who is supervising their kid and glancing at the phone now and then plus listening out to make sure they're still playing the game and not doing something they shouldn't, would likely miss the confirmation prompts as they're easily dismissed.

The only way to stop this if a kid is given access to the phone at an age where they may not comprehend the meaning of every screen, is to ensure IAP is disabled and a password forced for each purchase, however most parents (unless they've seen this news report ) won't know that's needed and the defaults won't offer them much protection.

If I've misunderstood what you were saying, and you meant that whilst a kid might make the mistake, an adult shouldn't then I agree. Although sometimes so many popups occur that people get used to dismissing them. Still their fault for not reading it, unless the game happens to use an in-game currency then people may mistake the confirmation dialogue as buying using the in-game money and not real money.

I can understand why Amazon and Apple try to avoid the password entry requirement though, I bet the number of refunds they have to do is far smaller than the amount they'd lose to people changing their minds when they've to enter their pass, or forgetting their pass and deciding it's not worth looking it up right now.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I think the password was to unlock the iPad. The problem was that they hadn't set up a password for purchases. It used to be that kids couldn't spend money unless you gave them money. Technology makes it so easy to spend money that people haven't fully adapted to it yet.

I wouldn't let my child alone without explaining about the in-app purchases, and only if he is old enough to understand.

And just letting a $$$ device in the hands of a child...

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by JoeD

The only way to stop this if a kid is given access to the phone at an age where they may not comprehend the meaning of every screen, is to ensure IAP is disabled and a password forced for each purchase, however most parents (unless they've seen this news report ) won't know that's needed and the defaults won't offer them much protection.

I think the real issue is that parents don't realize that several thousand dollars in charges is a possibility. The IAPs are password protected by default, and you can turn them off entirely or even set an allowance if you want. All of the necessary technological tools are available...but only if you *know* what kind of risk there is. The problem, as stated above, is that most people either don't know about the risk at all, or if they do know about the risk, they think that they may be charged an extra 99¢ or so.

I'm not sure why there isn't a default $25 (pick a number) daily limit for IAPs, which you can override in some onerous way if necessary, but which then resets itself to $25 on the next day.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I think the real issue is that parents don't realize that several thousand dollars in charges is a possibility.

Or that parents once again used an electronic device as a baby sitter?

[NickyWithNook]

This "electronic babysitter" assumption bugs me. If we all use electronic devices and it's OK, why isn't it OK for kids to use them? It might just be "playing" rather than "babysitting." I'm careful if I've put in a password recently, but otherwise I don't see the issue. They can use the iPad from time to time without me feeling like I'm using it as a babysitter.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Billi

Or that parents once again used an electronic device as a baby sitter?

To be fair, it was only for 15 minutes. It seems a little harsh to characterise that as using an electronic devive as a baby sitter.

[Ekaros]

My problem with this isn't stupid or ignorant people losing money, but damage which success of this kind of business models cause on gaming industry. Which I prefer not happening.

[shootingMaNs]

Originally Posted by NickyWithNook

This "electronic babysitter" assumption bugs me. If we all use electronic devices and it's OK, why isn't it OK for kids to use them? It might just be "playing" rather than "babysitting." I'm careful if I've put in a password recently, but otherwise I don't see the issue. They can use the iPad from time to time without me feeling like I'm using it as a babysitter.

I agree. We allow our youngest (9) to use my wife's ipad to play a game or watch Netflix, but it's regulated, and he isn't allowed to disappear to his room with it.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

I wouldn't let my child alone without explaining about the in-app purchases, and only if he is old enough to understand.

And just letting a $$$ device in the hands of a child...

That assumes the parent is aware of the implications of IAP. If they were, most would not only explain to their child not to buy things, but probably also turn it off just in case they don't understand or still made a mistake.

As for not giving a device to a kid or (as another poster said) using it as a babysitter. If you trust your child not to throw a temper tantrum when they lose and to sit carefully with the device, there's no reason not to let them use it. If they do drop it and break it, well accidents will happen and that's the risk you took giving it to a child.

Just because a child is playing a game on an tablet or phone rather than a DS, console, computer or board doesn't make any difference imo. Play is play and considering how important technology is to most people's lives now, there's possibly many advantages to introducing children to it early.

That said, I'm sure some parents do hand over phones just to keep their kids quiet rather than engage with them themselves aka using it as a babysitter, much like some parents will let the TV be the babysitter. However, just because some do that, does not mean every child that watches TV is doing so because their parents don't give a .... and are letting the TV babysit, any more so than it does when they're using a tablet/phone/other device.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I think the real issue is that parents don't realize that several thousand dollars in charges is a possibility. The IAPs are password protected by default, and you can turn them off entirely or even set an allowance if you want.

They're not protected by default, that's the problem. The initial purchase of the game be it paid or free is protected by a password, but for 15 minutes after that IAPs are wide open for purchasing with only a confirmation dialogue to tap yes on (Unless that has changed in a more recent firmware update, although I'm not aware of that been the case, I could be wrong).

Had IAPs been considered a separate thing to the App store purchase and a password entry required again the first time you try to make an IAP, then a lot of these cases would have never happened.

The only possibilities then would be if the child returned to the app store within the 15 minute window and bought more games, or if a parent paid for an IAP for them and then the kid bought more.

Again, unless the parent is aware that the 15 minute window exists they may assume that since they had to enter a password to buy the app (even if it was free) that they'd have to enter it whenever they buy anything and feel safe letting a child play on a few games.

I'm not sure what the solution is, since the options do now exist to prevent IAPs and to require a password with every purchase. It's a question of owners not been aware of these options nor been aware that the default doesn't require a password. Apple needs to do a better job of notify users about the existence of these options and what the default setting implies, or they need to make the default be require pass all the time and inform the user they can turn that off in the options if they want.

Of the parents I've mentioned the potential issues of IAP to, very very few of them were even aware of the potential costs that could occur just from letting their kid play a game. Most assumed as long as they stayed in the game and didn't visit the app store they'd be fine and even then expected to have to enter a password to spend any money. All now make use of the IAP disable options. It's really imo a question of Apple raising awareness.

I'm not sure why there isn't a default $25 (pick a number) daily limit for IAPs, which you can override in some onerous way if necessary, but which then resets itself to $25 on the next day.

Agree totally with this.