to be fucking beyond furious with my ten year old daughter

[ovaryhill]

Had a call from fraud prevention at my bank today
Daughter has been playing Movistar Planet and has taken my bank acard nd spent £266 over the past couple of months!!!
I'm so upset I could cry

If she had stolen £266 of cold hard cash from her mums purse would you all react differently? Even if she had done it bit by bit.

What if she had stolen from someone other than her mother?

Ok. Teeny words.

A PP mentioned redress through iTunes - which you picked up on and said was outrageous yada yada and I explained to you why that sometimes happened. If you can point to me where I said the OP should go back to the company involved and claim her money back I'd be glad to read it.

You didn't specifically. A PP did. She stated that her child did the same and she went to iTunes and got the money back. I find that despicable. Where is the acceptance of responsibility? Pass the buck, my child couldn't help it, it's the evil developers. Rubbish. It's like feeding your child a diet of mars bars then complaining to the company when they get fat.

If you don't know that these apps come with in-game purchases, or that iTunes tracks cost money, or or or, then you shouldn't give your child access to them.

But no. It's always someone else's fault, isn't it? And the company should give me the money back if we're stupid about it.

Teeny words for you too, love.

You are not going to emotionally damage your child by parenting her

No, but there's parenting and being cruel.

FFS, some people seem so inflexible. Not selling the dolls does not mean namby pamby parenting. There are plenty of other options, odfod's post is very sensible and drives home the important message of how serious her actions were.

Parenting is not black and white, there are many shades of grey. The aim of the punishment is to teach her why it's wrong, not to do it again and to earn back the money. Selling the dolls just seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to me, it's unlikely the proceeds will be nearly enough anyway and could very well risk interfering in the relationship between the OP and her dd.

Well my parents were pretty liberal, they just told us off in a constructive way, my brothers a lawyer so I think he understands the law!

All this 'punishment' talk is definitely a crude american import- punitive discipline does not help progress a society. The Americans have huge problems with crime and serious crime, is that a society we want to be emulating- I think not.

People engaging their brains and 'thinking' about their actions for the right reasons not through fear is 'progress'. Some ideas being advocated on here wouldn't be out of place in the 'Dark ages'! Equally, in a progressive society there is no place for children being referred to as 'little shits' or 'assholes', i'd be ashamed if I thought of children like that - that 'is' truly disgusting.

No, but there's parenting and being cruel.

bangs head against wall

I'm out, we all clearly have different parenting styles, yada yada, have to agree to disagree and keep our respective children away from each other

goldenbear please try to actually READ my post to hello, would you?

What is so bad about this theft is the continued deceit, over several months. It needs to be treated very seriously; it is not natural behaviour for a ten year old and if she is allowed to feel in any way that she is not totally responsible she will lie and steal in the future.

*You didn't specifically. A PP did. She stated that her child did the same and she went to iTunes and got the money back. I find that despicable. Where is the acceptance of responsibility? Pass the buck, my child couldn't help it, it's the evil developers. Rubbish. It's like feeding your child a diet of mars bars then complaining to the company when they get fat.

If you don't know that these apps come with in-game purchases, or that iTunes tracks cost money, or or or, then you shouldn't give your child access to them.

But no. It's always someone else's fault, isn't it? And the company should give me the money back if we're stupid about it.

Teeny words for you too, love.*

OK. Did you read my post where I said some developers have coded their apps to get around restrictions. So you can have the highest possible settings to avoid in-app purchases. And you can STILL be scammed for money. It isn't passing the buck - it is fact. And that is why in certain cases Apple will refund.

It isn't despicable. If someone runs up a massive bill because they haven't put their restrictions high enough - their problem. If developers haven't met Apple's T&C in terms of in-app purchases then that's different.

And one of the reasons as an Apple Dev you have to be watertight

I can easily see how this could escalate out of control for a 10 year old. She got away with it several times and maybe thought her mum somehow wasn't being charged? Or she lost track of how much she was taking?

Dear lord, millions of adults get themselves into stupid situations with over-spending on cards and gambling. There's no doubt that there has been a lot of denial or burying her head in the sand going on here and now she has learned her lesson that this will always come back to bite her on the bum - op you could look at it as a positive that she has learned this lesson early .

I am glad that you feel differently about it this morning.

It is not 'normal' to not know what your 10 year old is up to on a computer, it's not 'normal' to have no awareness of your 10 year old being bullied by 'friends' in her own home. Where's the interest in this child's life and what's happening in it. She's not 15, she's 10 but seems to be very independent.

YANBU but she is only 10!
I would go mad had my child done that I'm sure she knows it was wrong especially to lie.
I would remove access to the devices as said plus make her work it off in chores.
Once you have both calmed down a chat about money and responsibility is definitely needed. I hope you get a refund x x

OK. Did you read my post where I said some developers have coded their apps to get around restrictions. So you can have the highest possible settings to avoid in-app purchases. And you can STILL be scammed for money. It isn't passing the buck - it is fact. And that is why in certain cases Apple will refund.

Of course. But in THIS particular case, the child stole a debit card, not just one, more than one, over a period of months, and repeatedly stole money from her mother to do it. That is NOT the fault of the developer, and you absolutely can't say that it was getting around restrictions. Clearly the purchases weren't covert or sneaky, since she had to steal a debit card and deliberately enter the number to do it.

In THIS case, it would be extremely morally wrong of the OP to try and get a refund from the company, as a PP suggested. But hey, when does that stop people?

goldenbear please try to actually READ my post to hello, would you?

Tenforward, you're wasting your breath; I'm not sure that she actually can. At the very least, she clearly has no comprehension skills.

Minty, how has she learnt her lesson? How has this been a lesson for her future? If I go spend loads of money that isn't mine I don't have to pay it back but one day I might get caught and someone will take something from me, but I will get it back later so it's OK.
If we're comparing it to an adult getting into debt and burying their head in the sand then surely selling her dolls is exactly what should happen. At least. Baby Bailiffs.

kissing disrespectful evil little shit about a 10 year old. Lovely.

I have been a parent for 26 years and managed to raise 4 kids without ever referring to any child, let alone a 10 year old like this.

As I previously posted some parents are very proud to be considered hard and no nonsence and are generally unpleasant bullies in RL.

Also lots of parents and those who have not yet had children are full of the if that was my child their feet wouldn't touch blah blah blah and when actually are parents or faced with problems they react totally differently to their own children.

Hope so anyway as some on here are quite frankly unhinged.

Ceyes - I agree. I never said that the OP SHOULD try and get the money back from anyone but the child. I actually said that she and her daughter should sit down and sort some things of her daughters to sell to recoup the money.

My response regarding redress was specifically to a known issue with iTunes which you didn't seem to appreciate

HelloCampers, if you're going to quote me then actually quote me, don't change what I said.

She's learned her lesson that her Mum is furious with her and disappointed in her! That stealing will always be uncovered. That she can't go on spending money on cards without serious consequence. Isn't it obvious??

The sanctions could be that she has no computer time for a month (sounds like both parent and dd need to get a grip on how much screen time she is having) - I simply disagree that her mother needs to sell her most treasured possessions and cancel Christmas in some ghastly eye-for-an-eye scenario. And thankfully op agrees now that the initial anger has subsided.

Ceyes03, I must have missed your reply, I'll remind you of the question AGAIN- do you have children? I'm guessing not as you really do sound very 'ignorant'.......on the subject.

My friend's son did this (he spent £90. on two separate occasions)

The first occasion she stopped his pocket money and grounded him.

The second time she took him to the local police station and they walked him round the cells, explained that if he'd done this as an adult he'd be charged with theft, and were very clear on the consequences.

Hi all,
We're getting one or two (or ten or eleven...) reports about this thread and the fact that it's going a bit pear-shaped. We have communicated with some of you in private but in the meantime can we remind everyone of our Talk Guidelines? www.mumsnet.com/info/netiquette

Just to clear up a couple of things.

When I said the same thing had happened to me - I sent a quick reply because I thought the OP might appreciate to hear of our experience.

Actually the circumstances were very different. My son was young, my credit card details were already logged into my ipad because I used it to buy music. Neither he nor I knew he was spending 'real' money. Him because he wasn't reading the instructions and I because, happy that he was playing a little game with dinsosaurs in it was busy getting everyone ready for school, And as soon as we realised, we contacted iTunes and of course settings are changed now. Whole incident from start to finish was over in minutes.

Of course we made mistakes. But we know now.

He didn't steal my card, didn't know what he was doing and of course, I didn't allow him to steal and then expect iTunes to take care of it.

I didn't comment on the OPs dilemma because I honestly don't have advice about that. Just wanted her to know that we had had some success if looking for a refund was what she wanted to do.

Oh FFS, are you ALL a bunch of 12yo girls here?? People parent different ways - MN is supposed to be supportive of different parenting styles - they all have their good and bad points.

IMO the OP needs to be more careful about her bank card and about her dd's computer access and supervision. The OP's dd needs a punishment that will make her understand the gravity of the situation and make her realise that if it happens again, the consequences will be even more serious. The punishment should be something that is immediate and should include activities/chores that allow her to earn money and/or sell items to pay back the money she stole. I wouldn't think having it longer than a month would be of much use. After that, it just becomes ridiculous and there's no incentive for the dd to show better behaviour. Cancelling Christmas for something done in September is such a delayed punishment that the lesson will be entirely lost and again provides her with no incentive to behave better between now and Christmas. She not only has to understand that she has lost the OP's trust, but that she now needs to work to build up the trust again.

The OP will make her own decisions based on her circumstances and what she feels will work best for her dd.

Best of luck OP.

Kids do stupid things. This is more stupid than most, but it is still just a daft thing that a child did.
The DD does need to see some some consequences for her actions and the OP will know best what will get her attention and make her realise just how daft she has been.
To the previous comments about how unreasonable it is to partially blame the OP for this, that's not unreasonable, it is actually totally fair. We are talking about the actions of child here, not an adult. The whole point of parenting is that we should anticipate and prevent some of the more stupid actions our children might do. OP has already accepted she was partially at fault for allowing unsupervised computer access.
Whenever my kids do something really wrong, I take whatever action is needed to deal with the DC, but I also look at myself to work out what I am doing wrong that contributed towards them deciding to do it/being able to get away with it. That's what parents are for.
These are children; half formed people, still learning every day. If they get something wrong, I have to look at the faults in what I have done as well.