Dd 9yrs spent £96 on iTunes!!!

[M2R2]

Dd have my dh old iPhone. Apple id still on there but password protected, we just found out that she spent £96 in a game. When i asked how she got the password she said she guessed it.
Obviously she is grounded. Told her that she can say goodbye to her phone, and she have to pay back the money she spent from her pocket money. AIBU?
She said she deserves the punishment and she said that she should lock herself in her room for the rest of her life and never give her pocket money again and that she knows that she did s horrible thing.
Now i feel sad for her but don't want to show her. WWUD?

Please know you are not alone. My 9 yr old dd signed into our Apple account and spent $300 on Roblox. We were shocked and horrified at her and ourselves. When questioned she admitted she knew it was wrong but chose to go ahead. My dd does have impulse control issues and ADHD. She knows right from wrong, though.
She lost her iPad for 60 days and gave us the money she had been saving to buy a new Xbox.
We no longer have a credit card attached to our iTunes account.

As others have said.. contact apple customer service.. they're pretty good on a one off.

Re: her accepting the punishment readily.. my DS has always been the same.. he's 19 now and always made it hard to create any cause & effect so I sympathise

Delete the bank details from the device.
Start reading emails. Start checking bank transactions.
Don't tell her its refunded.

Oh, no, glad you got refunded OP. Does she know she can listen to nearly everything free on YouTube?

Why would you make her pay when you've had the money back? That's dishonest too.

And you're partly to blame for giving a nine year-old a phone with unmonitored internet access.

I think you should tell her the truth, that it's been refunded, but that Apple will never do that again, it was a one-time only deal.

Trust is a two-way street after all, and she may be really upset if she one day finds out that you've deceived her to make her feel extra bad.

However her punishment should still stand: no phone for a while; and perhaps you could donate her pocket money to a kids charity for the next few weeks to help others instead who aren't as fortunate as her?

£96? My 9 yr old spent £3,500! Apple were very good and I got it all back a few days later.

How did you not have a heart attack before you even phoned Apple?

Does she know she can listen to nearly everything free on YouTube?

I wouldnt encourage that either. YouTube is video streaming if she does that when she isn't connected to wifi, she will run up a massive data bill for video streaming.

I am not sure you can trust a 9 year old to only use it on wifi.

Oh I meant on wifi - not necessarily on the phone either.

It's not stealing DD's money when it's coming from OP initially. It's just withholding pocket money without explaining about the refund.

DS5 did this and paid £15 to join some PS4 .plus club. After lots of tears (mine, we were on the bones of our arse) and no gaming for a while, DP said it's actually really worth paying as it would save us money in gamea which are usually £35+
My kid is gonna end up like Martin Lewis or a mass murderer because plays video games.

He did get telling off because he totally knows what he's doing, so DP got an equal bollocking for leaving my details on there.

DD11 smashed phone screen. To have it mended and the use of phone back, she had to weed the drive, paint the fence and do extra cleaning for a month.

To all those saying 'see if Apple will refund', why should they? Parental responsibility are the keywords here.

£10 a week pocket money is a lot... my nearly 8 year old has just gone up to £2 a week....

As for the dramatics, well just dock her pocket money until it is paid back.

Also she's too young to have unsupervised access.

You need to get her off the phone.

Would you let your child drive your car? I assume the phone contract is held and paid for by the parent, which comes with a certain amount of responsibility. It's not a toy

Being able to understand the value of money at 9 is a bit of a red herring with things like this, dd played on my phone long before she could read or count and understand money, and whenever she tapped the wrong part and the white password prompt came up she was shown how to cross it off and it became second nature, as she got older then it was explained why that box gets crossed off, and that it costs money etc.

Even games intended for toddlers have IAPs, if they are gonna be given a phone to play on they can be learnt that they should cross off that purchase pop up off straight away and expand in why, and other rules etc as they get older.

By 9 most children can read and understand what money is, so even without understanding just how much money £90 is, they'd be fully aware that they spending actual money that's coming from parents bank..

RE guessing password, one of the most common passwords parents have is thier child's name and year of birth, very easy to guess. Was talking about passwords a few months ago with family and it turned out only two of them didn't use their child's name and have changed it since.

Accidents happen but from what you say she knew exactly what she was doing, the value of £96 and that it was something she knew she shouldn't be doing. I'm prob in the minority but I'd not have contacted Apple if i could afford to cover it and have the child pay it back either by no pocket money or handing xmas gift money. As you've been already contacted and been given money back I'd not tell her about the refund and still make her the majority of it back. You say she understands so I'd want her to learn she pays for what she spends.

Dh needs to change his password. I'd not be giving her device back for a long time, and if/when she gets it back id be setting up her own Apple ID, which she doesn't have password for and which isn't linked to bank and if she wants to spend money she asks an adult to purchase a voucher with her own pocket money. If you must use dhs AppleId she absolutely isn't allowed any apps that contain IAP purchases, she asks permission before any download, even free games, dh checks his IDs download history everyday and changes his password regularly. Use an app that generates complex ones that she won't be able to guess.

My dd is 12 now and fully understand if she disobeys any of the rules we have she loses all online access, the lot, no more podcasts, no more Netflix, no more FaceTime, no minecarft with mates, everything.

You said you're mad at your dh as he buys things and she's got it from him. Would you be mad at him if dd had done the same thing with other things he buys? If he'd bought a few things off amazon and dd had sneaked into that and bought stuff would you be mad at dh for using amazon?

I think you need to review all of her online time not just via a phone. A manipulative and sneaky 9 yo is probably not to be allowed any unsupervised activity that requires trust for a while.

Sorry I don't know how to highlight in the app.
I was upset with dh as i feel buying coins for a game is stupid .
Its not like we have money lying around and can spend here and there. We meet our everyday experiences but thats only because i only buy what we need. So gaming is not really on the table.
Not sure if you get my point.
Dh is different. He spend what he have and never plan for tomorrow. (Thats why he always rely on me for financial decisions).
I always try to teach dd that when she want to buy something she must think about how much she need it and if there is something more important. Thats why when he told me about her spending on iTunes i felt that I failed. I felt she have it in her not caring how she spend.
I feel she shouldn't have her phone back. Actually thinking of selling it. Would that be too much?
We don't have a wii or xbox and she always wanted one. I am considering selling the phone and getting one instead.

Sorry expenses not experience 😰

I misunderstood your point about DH, him spending money you can't afford on gaming is something you need to address and I'd be pissed off too, I love my gaming but there's no way I'd be buying coins or games while we can only afford essentials. I get where youre coming from now in thinking it may have contributed to what your dd did. That he's passed his carefree attitude to her?

I would be wary of buying her a games console as several console games also contain IAPs and they also have app stores, some of which are £70 and up, if she sneaked the password and did this again then it could cost you a lot more. Pre owned games can be cheap but still much more expensive than most games iOS.

I wouldn't be giving any access to any devices for several months at least, as I'd feel like I'm rewarding my child by giving her something she's really wanted so soon after her doing something like this. Would your dh be likely to fritter money on coins and stuff on console games too? If you think he would then I'd set it all up yourself and don't give passwords to either of them, all purchases and downloads go through you first according to family budgets etc.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I think you should tell her that the money was refunded.

Lots of very harsh responses on here! When I was I forged a cheque! I wanted a necklace that I saw advertised in a girl's magazine like Tammy or something like that for those old enough to remember. It cost £1. I looked in my money box and I had enough cash but it was all in coppers. I put it in a heap and thought well I can't send that. For some reason my mum had given me an old cheque book with 3/4 cheques in it to play with. I don't know why as it was a live bank account.

Anyway, I thought of the cheque book, filled in the cheque and sent it off. A few days later my mum got a phone call from the bank asking her about a cheque in a child's handwriting...

I was told off but not punished and I got to keep the necklace.

I didn't turn into an international jewel thief. It's a family joke these days.

My ds is nearly 15 and I have refused to activate in-app purchases on the xbox, much to his disgust (and I think it's disgusting that a game you've paid quite a lot of money for demands extra money to unlock extra features). A few years ago when he was about 8 he bought a couple of films on our Virgin Media account. It was not PIN-protected at the time (surely the default should be a PIN?) so we swiftly added one. He knows the PIN now but is sensible and always asks. But the in-app purchases is a no-no for me, simply too easy to get carried away, however old you are.

I should have said "when I was 9".

I loved the cheque in a child's writing loool.
About dh we had a big argument when I found out and he learn the hard way not to spend things he doesn't have.
Today dd told me i know am grounded but can i at least watch YouTube. She loves the make up tutorials and toys reviews and stuff. I used to find them annoying am actually happy that she is grounded.

I feel that she is jealous from her siblings (dd2 and ds 3months). She was an only child for so long and all the sudden now we have 2 babies. She seems overwhelmed.
I was crying today I don't know how others coop. Its been 3 months now and i never went out with them on my own, even if i meed milk i wait for dh to come home.