... to expect Apple to refund money spent by a child on in-app purchases?

[Pleb1969]

OK, not me, but a neighbour and close friend of mine had this happen to her. She let her 9 year old DD play on the Ipad on some app called Tiny Zoo or something. DD knew daddy's password and managed to empty his bank acount of £600 in 5 minutes by purchasing fairies and unicorns for this virtual zoo. Dont think she realised she was blowing actual money - the holiday money they had been saving up... Apple/Itunes will not refund it, saying they received goods and didnt breach their T&C's. Friend posts on that finance blokes (Martin Lewis) twitter account and gets blasted for being a bad parent!! Bit harsh dont you think?

If you don't want an empty bank account, then the children should not have the password.

YABVU - it's the parents' responsibility to prevent this from happening. Apple have no legal or moral obligation to refund when it is due to parental negligence.

Ooh, I never knew about the 15 minute live bit! Sneaky!

DD knew daddy's password

Daddy shouldnt share his password.

However, having been stung for 200 quid on a kindle thanks, DH, for not ordering itas a gift and leaving your email opn on Christmas day, Amazon immediately refunded.

Don't distance selling regulations come into this? You're technically buying a product, be it a virtual one, shouldn't the cooling off period apply so that you can "return" the purchase and get refunded?

Haven't read all the replies but frankly it was stupid of the parents to let the child have the password. A very expensive lesson learnt.

At the end of the day the child has made the purchases and had the fairies or whatever. Tough.

Last year DS (5 at the time) was playing a game on DPs iPad and DP had forgotten to put the password back on his iTunes (DS usually plays on my iPad not DPs)
He quickly spent over £400 in in app purchases on some dog game.

Apple were fab and refunded straight away, the money was back in the bank almost instantly. I was very impressed with them.

I also have two friends who's DC's have done similar things in the past, both had their money refunded by apple.

Clearly there is a reason apple are refusing to refund your friend.
Maybe because the DC is older and knew the password.

YABU

Why should Apple be the safety net for people stupid enough to give a child control of an account and then go wailing that they have been scammed?

We bought our teen dcs ipads for Christmas last year. We disabled in app purchases before handing them over.

I feel sorry for the family holiday budget, but what the hell are parents doing allowing the children to have a password? What is to stop them downloading porn or other inappropriate apps?

In this case, Apple probably isn't refunding because the DD entered the password. At 9, surely she should know this isn't allowed!

The parents didnt realise she had discovered the password, or even how. They certainly never gave it to her intentionally. I never gave my DS the password to my iphone but the little bugger found it out. Has been changed now obviously...

It was the parents fault, There are settings which do not allow this to happen therefore it isn't apples fault.

Ouch though :(

Erm another question..

Why didn't she disconnect her bank account from her iTunes account? You can have your payment method set as None.
I only have gift cards active on mine so IF (and that's big as mine is locked down) Toad manages it, he's only wiped the gift balance.

Can't believe they won't refund, my daughter did this too didn't realise it was real money she was spending £700 later, apple was fantastic ,refund sraight away and a lovely email a couple of days later,needless to say we sent sent them a grateful one back .

Ouch. I refuse to link my iPhone to my credit card. I buy gift cards only so there's only ever £20 that can be spent (another way to limit the possibility of this happening if anyone is worried).

I think though that the parents should have been more careful about what was accessible on the device, but gutting for them though.

Clearly Apple are not obliged to refund, and parents have a responsibility to educate DCs on in -app purchases etc but I also think these games which are aimed at children should not have the in-app purchases in the first place. Completely unethical imo. We downloaded a playmobile app for DD (playmobile clearly aimed at young DCs!) and the whole thing is just about trying to push purchases every few seconds. I'd rather pay more for good apps for kids and have this element of the 'games' removed altogether.

This happened to my friends and Apple went out f their way to refund and apologise. It was well over £900.

My DD2 did this too last year, with £70, rather than hundreds fortunately, and Apple refunded straight away

I hadn't realised the in-app purchases had to be pass-worded separately from iTunes. It is now obviously

Could anyone tell me how to turn in app purchases off please?
Got ours from XH, no instructions or owt!

DD (13) knows my password but would never use without asking as she has more money than me and I would 100% take it back. DS is much younger and can't really spell properly yet, so unlikely he would- but just on the off chance...

Sorry for your friends, OP

thanks for the link, DC don't have my password but it good to know there is more security.

Op the parents shouldn't be giving the child the password.

We've disabled in-app purchases and its really easy to set up. It's not Apples fault that some people aren't smart enough to use/set-up their hi-tech gadgetry. YABU.

TheSitChew to turn off on iPhones/iPads

ipod.about.com/od/iphonehowtos/qt/Turn-Off-In-App-Purchases-Iphone.htm

Oops, sorry, didn't see the link further up to start with