Daughter charged £££ to my credit card in Roblox

[sassypants72]

🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ I thought I had in app purchases disabled on her iPad !!!

Apparently her friends kept asking her to buy things and she thought it would be rude to say no. She's 8 by the way.

I'm more sad about the fact she felt she couldn't say no to friends, or didn't have the confidence to !!

I've had a big chat with her tonight and she's quite upset.

Do any of you have some advice for me on how I can go about boosting her confidence and self worth

I'm amazed you haven't asked about trying to get the money back...

I think risk taking is good. Even if it's just leaping off of logs or cycling down a fast hill. Teaches them they can take on risks & learn to deal with them & survive when it doesn't go well but keep trying anyway.

At other moments (don't make your Dd feel bad) I also tell them I expect them to think for selves, don't just do something because other people think it's ok. Think about it.

It's hard. Nobody gets this perfect.

I didn't think I could get the money back as it's my fault for not disabling in app purchases.

We all learnt an important lesson this evening.

I just wish she'd had the confidence to say no and now realise I need to work on confidence building with her.

Roblox has been almost a life line for her during lock down and she has been playing with her friends online.

It's worth trying to get the money back.
My daughter once spent a couple of hundred on coins for a game. About 6 years ago now. I did get the money back.
I dont know how Roblox works though.

I heard users under 18 who buy coins or whatever like this have their accounts deleted.

I’ve no advice for self confidence sorry but have you got your Apple ID accounts linked in a family? This article tells you how to do it. It means whenever your daughter wants to download an app free or paid or buy an in app purchase the request comes through to your phone and you have to approve it or decline it.

Useful way of keeping track of what they’re downloading and no nasty surprises.

If it hasn't happened before you can attempt to get your money back. We did when our eldest did similar. It's worth a try.

My dd is addicted to roblox but it seems quite creative. We don't have any links at all to cc to buy stuff but our dd has been badgering us to buy stuff.

Re confidence I don't know. Its a skill many many adults never learn so don't feel bad that she can't say no at 8.

It's a skill to learn. I hope someone with more help can comment but I think respecting their choices is also part of it? When they say no, accept that?

It's sad that she didn't have the confidence to say no. Did she know it would be using your money? We have an 8 year old and he plays it on lots of devices, mostly his computer. He already knows the security number for the back of the cards so technically he could use our cards, however the difference is, he knows he must not, not without permission.

My seven year old decided to login to our laptop this morning and purchase something for a game using bloody PayPal. I was not a happy bunny. Particularly since he knew it was wrong but did it anyway.

We’ve now had to do a whole lot of extra security and he’s had to pay for the purchase using his pocket money.

How much are you talking about?

If she was my daughter, her account would be deleted because she has proved to be too young for unsupervised access.

She's just too young to resist online pressure from "friends", and she needs a whole lot more training from you on that score.

Have you checked who the friends really are? If they are known to you, you should inform their parents what's been going on.

God knows what other unsuitable behaviours they are pressuring vulnerable little girls to copy.

I think she understood what she was doing, but felt she couldn't say no to friends. She's a very kind girl and loves to share with friends.

She's very compassionate and has totally unprompted asked me if she can help with homeless shelters and charities before.

The cost to me was around £70 I think, still waiting for it to come through on credit card, but for me it's not about the money it's about her learning the important life skill of being able to say no without feeling terrible about it.

And yes the friends are known and their family's have been informed.

I've also removed her ability to do in app purchases this morning

It sounds like she just needs to learn that being kind in the moment isn't necessarily being kinder overall than saying no. She was kind to her friends, but she wasn't kind to you by doing this.

My seven year old decided to login to our laptop this morning and purchase something for a game using bloody PayPal. I was not a happy bunny. Particularly since he knew it was wrong but did it anyway.

Why does your 7 year old have the password to your laptop?

Especially when you have it linked to PayPal.
Does he know the password to that too ? Or are the details saved so that no password needed?

If you report it you may get your money back but your daughters account will be deleted

I would consider telling the parents of the other child that there was some egging-on with a £70 outcome. Not to get money from them but for them to also review unsupervised internet activity their end.

Can I just say what a lovely thing that is to say 'I don't care about the money, just her inability to say no'. I don't think you need to do much more then you have your obviously an amazing parent and your daughter will just learn from you being a brilliant role model

This brings back memories, it happened to my son, he was buying "hats" for his online friends who lived in another country.

@LovingLola because he’s been doing school work on it during this period of homeschooling.

And yes, the PayPal password was stored. We’ve now changed that so it needs a second authorisation.

I would have been less annoyed if it had been an in app purchase because we’d made the mistake of not securing the iPad properly. But the iPad is set up correctly. He had managed to download games on the television and had then found the laptop, logged in, found the website and then linked through to PayPal that way. It was very premeditated, particularly because he also knew it was wrong.

It’s not possible to stop them from downloading games on the television. All we can do it password protect the games. I can already tell we’re going to be sibling in quick sand once he gets older and more switched on. He already codes and is very tech savvy. I hope to god he’s not hacking the Pentagon in five years time 😬

@sassypants I managed to get all my money back

*sinking

@Feelthefear01 it’s fine to claim that not caring about money makes you an amazing parent. However for some people £70 is the weeks food shop and if it gets spent on something else then people go hungry. Secondly, I think being an amazing parent also includes teaching the importance and of not taking money without permission ie stealing and controlling impulses ie I want therefore I shall have. The next step for kids who have no consequences could be petty theft from shops etc. So I think good parenting is showing empathy and concern along with appropriate boundaries and consequences.