Kids playing games on a phone or iPad might seem like a harmless thing and an easy way to mollify them or keep them busy, but one mom recently learned that their gaming decisions can have brutal real-life consequences.
Jessica Johnson from Wilton, Connecticut, has a 6-year-old who loves playing video games on an iPad. It shouldn’t have been such an issue except for two vital points: Her PayPal account was linked to the iPad, and she’d set a password — but she thinks her settings only asked for a one-time password entry.
So her son spent part of his summer playing Sonic Forces and making staggering in-game purchases that Johnson had no clue about.
In all, she was hit with an Apple App Store bill for $16,293.10 — absurd enough to sound like a joke, but this was no laughing matter.
She tried to contest the charges with her bank, but they confirmed that she would be held responsible for them. After she reached out to Apple, they refunded part of the staggering amount.
Apple also told the news outlet in a statement that they understand that “mistakes can still happen” and appeared to want to do right by the blindsided Johnson.
“For over a decade, the App Store has proved to be the safest and most trusted place to discover and download apps,” they said.
“We understand mistakes can still happen and work with customers to investigate, educate them on the tools available for their protection and, in this case, provided the customer with a refund.”
Johnson is taking the opportunity to warn other parents who, like her, might be stressed with everything on their plate and not realize that it is possible for their children to rack up thousands of dollars of purchases.
“As a mother of young children, I thought it was important for other parents to be aware of it,” Johnson said. “It’s unfortunate, because we’re all in a pandemic, we’re all working from home.”
“We are working really hard to keep our kids entertained while getting work done. We’re [sometimes] inclined to say, ‘Here, take the iPad.’ I think, clearly, it backfired in my case.”
“I didn’t realize there was a setting where the child could continue to buy without the password after a certain amount of time. There are various settings that now I’m learning about.”
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