to faint at my bank statement showing £200 gone on in app purchases?

[NickiFury]

DD age 7, don't know how, has managed to get my password and turn on in app purchases and has been purchasing with abandon tokens and jewels in Nemo's Reef and Minion Rush games.

She has only been doing it for three days, thank goodness or who knows how much she would have spent.

Fortunately I have been on to Apple who are refunding all the charges (thank goodness, am lone parent and every penny counts).

Just to warn you all to be aware, I did everything right, set up all security settings, thought my password was secret etc, restricted I Pad use and she was still able to do it.

Thing is she has ASD and I know she wouldn't have done it in an underhand way, just would have thought she was really clever to manage to do it.

Be Careful!!!!!

Make sure child never sees you enter the number (and don't use something obvious like their date of birth).

Sure, take that precaution. But for heaven's sakes, isn't it easier to NOT ever run the risk of getting a high credit card bill???????

I don't get it. Put all these blocks in place, but there are some pretty bloody clever kids out there and it will be quite easy for them to see the code entered at some point.

Children are more clever than you think.

I once knew an 11 year old boy (with ASD) who found out his dad's eBay password by looking over his shoulder and remembering one letter at a time.

Eg he looked the first time remembered the first letter, went and wrote it down.
The second time he wrote the second letter

It must have taken him weeks!

When he finally had the whole password he ordered loads of stuff. They were fortunate and were refunded.

HayDayQueen NickiFury

I don't really understand your apparent annoyance with me as I don't believe anything I've said should provoke such a reaction. However you are of course entitled to disagree with my comments.

I'm sure your kids love fiddling with your tech , and I'm sure you'll love the bills next time Apple refuse to waive them, or when you have to replace expensive stuff after your 7 year old flushes your mobile phone down the loo or something.

Sorry if it upsets you but I really cannot understand this 'thing' of parents giving small children their expensive, breakable gadgets to fiddle with... I really don't understand why you'd do that.

man because they can be really educational and beneficial to the child.

You come across very dictatorial and self righteous, and if you can't see that in your post then nothing I can say will make you understand.

There is nothing wrong with letting children play with technology, nothing at all. Technology is a very useful tool. It's brilliant for maths games, drawing games, spelling games, etc, etc, etc. What's wrong is not setting things up safely for them to play with.

I won't have high bills from Apple, ever. Because the limit on my Apple account is only ever £20. Once that's gone that's it!

If something is damaged, then that's what you have insurance for. And to be honest, I've caused more damage to my IPad than either my 7 or 5 year old have!

If you go down the 'no child NEEDS to have technology' path, well then be honest and tell me how much of your technology YOU NEED! Very few people NEED IPads, but a whole heck of a lot of them have them.

But all children have technology at school, they learn how to use it faster than we do. And we would be doing them a disservice in not allowing them to use technology at home, within safe limits.

nicki could you ask her to 'repay' by helping with chores or that sort of thing?

So there are consequences of a sort and she has to recognise her role.

"My stuff is mine and they are not to touch"

Way to go to teach them to be selfish little egotists.

manina parent in whatever way you choose but to respond by essentially saying:

"My children are too young to do this anyway but my skills are such that this will never happen to me"

Is maybe what caused the problem.

I do hear what you are saying but your post wasn't really helpful to the op's predicament.

And do you honestly see nothing educational about iPads or the like?

That is worrying.

Some how my dd age 5 keeps reinstalling app that I have deleted, really don't know how she is doing it it's driving me nuts.

Muminawomansworld how old are your children? I have a 7 yr old he has his own hudl...he also ran up a £350 phone bill using internet on my phone which luckily was refunded. Quite normal for children to want to use gadgets and also not understand it's real money.
Come back when you get there...

I think ican that if an app has been previously deleted it can be re downloaded without a password. I think, anyway. There must be a setting for that too

man - the iPad in our house isn't mine. Or Dh's. We don't have one. We don't even have a TV. The iPad belongs to the children and was a Christmas present for the three of them (together), from us and both sets of parents. We did this because we felt it was important educationally for them to have access to one. They have plenty of books, toys, and time outdoors but this is another important mode of learning. It is theirs, used within the limits we set, they respect it and definitely don't flush it down the loo. The oldest is seven. What do you make of that?

Goodness. Glad you managed to get it back.

Android seems better than apple for allowing multiple profiles on one device.

manima it's not a matter of not letting them "fiddle with my tech". We have family devices that we share. My DD's mouse skills were 'behind' when she started school age 4, and since then I've eased up about screen time! In every classroom there's the whiteboard computer, PC and multiple tablets. It's just part of the way they learn these days. Do you not let your children read books either, in case they damage them?

Annoyed? No. Bored by your comments? Yes. Heard it all before.

My children have been using iPads since they were three, they've been fab with them. We replaced their shared I Pad recently because it was too old to support more recent apps, no camera on it. So that's how careful they've been, five years old and not a scratch on it.

They're not too young at all and they both have ASD. If you had the faintest idea what you were talking about you would know that iPads are highly recommended for children with ASD (often provided in schools) because the technology involved can be perfectly matched to their abilities.

So again, Bore Off!

The iPad has worked wonders on my child with asd.

My colleague had something similar happen.

Turns out the information was saved in the cloud from the time she entered it years ago (AND it updated each time she got a new card - linked to the account info apparently). She had to go through and remove the card from the devices/cloud.

I repeat someone else advice DELETE the credit card account from all your accounts and use a prepaid debit/credit card for purchases instead. A hassle but can end up being cheaper!

This is why I have a prepaid credit card on most of my accounts ie amazon itunes etc. My kids are fairly sensible and always check with me, but this does reduce the risk of this happening.

No offence intended, but clearly you didn't do 'everything' right - she somehow got hold of your password. That can't 'just' happen. You need to prevent that happening at all costs and understand the value of protecting it. Good that you got it sorted though.

"Some how my dd age 5 keeps reinstalling app that I have deleted"

They never go away because once you've ordered them once, they are in your iTunes account. If she goes into App Store, they'll be in a list somewhere,

Thanks for that telling off uncle but that conclusion was reached quite some considerable time ago. Hence my posting 8 hours ago.

Annoyed? No. Bored by your comments? Yes. Heard it all before.

Hmmm... so you've heard these 'boring' comments before yet you still somehow allowed a child to run up a £200 bill.

Perhaps then you should pay more attention to apparently 'boring' comments in future and you may not find yourself in these predicaments.

Hows that for advice?

With respect, it wasn't a telling off - it was a statement of fact, and also simply an attempt to point out how vital it is to protect passwords. I suppose you've probably already learned the hard way, but generally people need to be more careful in this regard and if it helps stop other people getting such a shock then good.

Even if the password is set to immediately that makes no difference, for example, if you are asked by you child/children to input password for a new game they can then click on another game to install and just hit the return button (without retyping password) and that will also download as well as the original game.

Also, how did you already conclude that when you posted that you did 'everything right'? Don't complain because people point out the obvious in response to that obviously incorrect claim.

maninawomanaworld

Sorry if it upsets you but I really cannot understand this 'thing' of parents giving small children their expensive, breakable gadgets to fiddle with... I really don't understand why you'd do that.

Let me put it this way, I didn't download the CBeebies app for me. Or any of the other maths games I've got on there.