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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To take away DD's tablet after she ran up £180 bill on games?!

150 replies

Glittermud · 08/03/2016 12:49

She got it for her birthday and was thrilled. We naively assumed that she was a mature and trustworthy (relatively speaking) 8 yr old. But then this morning I saw in my account that she has spent over £180 on my card buying ridiculous coins and games and characters.

We had sat her down and explained how the 'free' games worked and had told her not to even consider buying anything but to approach us first if she felt that she wanted to. She agreed and we trusted her. And now here we are.

DH has suggested confiscating it for a week or two and I am fighting the desire to take it away permanently. Am I an unreasonable hot head? What would be the best punishment?!

OP posts:

expatinscotland · 08/03/2016 17:18

YABU. This was your fault, tbh.

Pipbin · 08/03/2016 17:41

But I know my child and she has a firm grasp on money

Yes but in game money isn't like real money is it.
Look at it like this:
She is playing a game where she has to buy stock to sell in her clothes shop. She starts the game with £100 coins.
She buys various items of clothing for so many coins each time.
Each time is says 'this costs 4 coins. Buy it?', and she says yes.
Then she runs out of coins. She goes to buy something else and it says 'you don't have enough coins. Buy more for £5'.
It's very hard to see the difference when you are 8 years old.

lionsleepstonight · 08/03/2016 18:10

I think it is unfair to punish your child as you set her up to fail by linking the tablet to a card/not setting up a password.

Or did you give her the password?

Yes, you and your DH were incredibly naive, but you have to accept that the reason she was able to spend the money is because of your limited tech knowledge/ambivalence.

These games can be quite sneaky, and coins and skins look can be made to look 'free', or they just state 'unlock additional life' and then have a cost in very small text. Why you expect your 8 year old to be able to mange the account if you can't is beyond me.

I also get an e mail after each purchase. Have you not seen those popping in your/your DH inbox?

Suck it up as a life lesson, and do your homework when you get her a smartphone!

Ameliablue · 08/03/2016 18:59

I disagree with those saying an 8 year old wouldn't understand the difference between real money and fake currency in these games. My 8yo had been playing these games since she was a toddler and we'll knows the difference.

Nicola19 · 08/03/2016 19:17

Don't know if someone has already suggested this but a few months ago I got an email saying I had spent £130 on kiddie games and I was ready to speak to my DD but the link asked lots of security questions and I became suspicious. Over coming days nothing went out of my account and so I think it was a scam.

Original poster

Glittermud · 08/03/2016 23:58

My naivety is not in doubt. Well, I had a good chat with her which demonstrated that she was fully aware of the difference between game money and real money. Then I let her know what she'd done.

I made it clear that she was absolved from 99% of blame because I was a fool, but that her lying was unacceptable. Her dad scrolled through all 19 pages of purchases with her to show her the cumulative effect of the choices she'd made and that seemed to really bring it home. She'll be without the tablet for a week and when she gets it back it'll be watertight.

OP posts:

AndNowItsSeven · 09/03/2016 00:11

0800 496 1081 amazon customer services.

Yohoodlum · 09/03/2016 00:12

I love your responses OP. They made me smile. Byou are not the first parent to be caught out like this. It's pillocky but at least you'll be more careful in future.

Good luck contacting Amazon. You could try live chat, I've always found them to be helpful.

GrimDamnFanjo · 09/03/2016 00:28

Parental controls are there for a reason. It's really not her fault!

sashh · 09/03/2016 03:40

To be quite honest I think losing £180 is an expensive but useful lesson. Giving an 8 year old unrestricted access to a tablet is crazy.

In game purchases are not porn, not grooming, not pro anorexia or 100 other things she could access.

Ditsy4 · 09/03/2016 04:31

I would make it longer than a week and I would take a bit of money from her account. Someone suggested £20 and I think that is quite a good amount. I think at 8 she has understood some of the implications and by charging her for them it will be a good lesson for the future. Consequences to all purchases. I do think you as parents have been naive so need to bare the brunt of the mistake. I have heard of this at school and several children have run up bigger bills.
One of our kids ran up a huge phone bill by taking house phone to bed and talking for hours. We them do chores and the were grounded for a month. Dc was about 14. That child is careful with money now and had a contract phone when mobiles available be careful when she is old enough for one.

MartinaJ · 09/03/2016 04:49

I still find it very difficult to believe that parents give their children a device with access to internet with no restrictions set up. In-app purchases are sneaky, I saw adults falling for them. And if you allow them and also allow purchases without asking for password (or worse, give the pw to your child) then as an adult you need to accept 100% of the blame because it was entirely your initial fault in setting up the tablet.

Travelledtheworld · 09/03/2016 05:22

My friends son ran up a bill of over £2,000 playing games on the iPad one half term holiday.

PrincessMouse · 09/03/2016 06:17

Glittermud I was going to suggest that you consider the £180 a loan which your DD is obliged to pay once she is in employment. I was also going to strongly suggest that until she has paid the loan back, you should charge her a monthly interest rate of say 5% on the £180. But I see you and your DH have come up with a much better solution to the problem at hand.

On a personal note please could you share with me where you buy your gold-flecked champagne?

iyamehooru · 09/03/2016 06:23

At 8 years old why has she got a bank card she can use to purchase games....oh wait I've just realised you registered your card for her......horse, stable, bolted. You should take responsibility, personally I don't think she should be punished.

Shannaratiger · 09/03/2016 06:25

Block purchases and buy her gift cards to buy stuff. Sorry but it's your fault this has been on the news loads.

VinceNoirLovesHowardMoon · 09/03/2016 06:35

My ds is 7 and understands very well what things on the iPad cost money. He has never attempted to download apps that you pay for and knows what sign indicates they are free so only asks for free games. Obviously I have in app purchases turned off anyway and a password that he doesn't know but the point is that he is old enough to understand what spending real money on the iPad looks like. The OP's dd is also responsible.

Original poster

Glittermud · 09/03/2016 08:24

I've taken responsibility but to say that is my fault that this had been on the news lately is a step too far...

OP posts:

MartinaJ · 09/03/2016 09:33

Glittermud, it is the fault of all parents who give their children a mobile device with internet connectivity without a proper set up.
If you don't know how to block InApp purchases, google it.
If you don't know how to setup your device so you ARE asked for password every single time you want to buy something, google it or RTFM. If you don't want to have it like that, because it's more convenient to just click on the buy button, tough luck.
If you give your child a device into their hands where there are no restrictions in place, it's 100% your responsibility. An 8-year old child may know about money but they are not mature enough to know the full consequences. And in-app purchases are sneaky. A little popup appears, looking nice and colorful, not much different from the popups where they are supposed to pay with points they earned in a game. And it's deceitful. It's normally 1 pound there, 2.99 somewhere else.
Yes, those things frequently make the news and everybody is being blamed, children, Apple, whoever else but where's the bloody responsibility of a parent to have their device set up so this doesn't happen? A 2K pound bill because the child was listening to Spotify abroad? Turn off the bloody data roaming! A 180 pound bill for in-app purchases? Turn it off! I can't believe some parents were suggesting taking the money off the girl's pocket money.
It would be a different story if she overrode the restrictions PIN because she somehow got to it. Children live in a lala land sometimes, especially when they are in the middle of an exciting game.

JanetOfTheApes · 09/03/2016 10:56

Jolly good, another AIBU thread where people keep on kicking the OP, long after they have totally agreed to being in the wrong. No need to be a dick about it lads.

IgnoreMeEveryOtherReindeerDoes · 09/03/2016 12:08

Op did you have any joy with contacting Amazon? Also if it's the Amazon fire tablet that came out in October 2015 did you get notification about the plug charger? They issuing replacements as that model has a fault that can cause electric shock

PrincessMouse · 09/03/2016 13:31

I think the Op has handled herself really well on this thread.

Original poster

Glittermud · 09/03/2016 22:50

I haven't had time to call them yet. Although I probably could have stopped my afternoon Walking Dead marathon a couple of episodes earlier...

I'll check out the plug situation. Let's hope I apply a little more thought to that, eh?

OP posts:

ExAstris · 10/03/2016 00:28

My DS has a Kindle Fire. The Kids Profiles are great, they're part of the reason we bought that tablet. In a kids profile in-app purchases are locked, they can't download new apps either, the only web access is through a child-friendly browser pre-loaded with suitable websites, and you can lock the device automatically at certain times or just lock specific content types. DS's Kindle Fire is linked to my Amazon account (and therefore credit card), but he can't buy anything. I buy apps (or often get them free through Amazon Underground as someone's already mentioned), send them to the tablet, then have to go on the tablet and add them to his profile before he can play them.

IgnoreMeEveryOtherReindeerDoes · 10/03/2016 01:15

The plug recall is only for kindle Fire 7” and UK Fire Kids Edition 7

It's only upto 4weeks wait for replacement .

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