To think this mum should have been more concerned

[consideratealpaca]

Dd9 has an account on a popular online gaming platform. During lockdown she spent a reasonable amount of time playing this game with her class friends from school. One particular girl and DD have butted heads a few times and fell out, which to me seemed like normal kid like behaviour and I wasn't concerned.
Despite me trying to persuade DD not to, she opted to spend some of her birthday money on 'diamonds' to enhance her game experience. I think she spent roughly £100 in dribs and drabs, which I wasn't impressed about, but it is her money when all is said and done.
Last week she came to me and said her account had been 'hacked' and all her diamonds, special objects etc had been stolen. She was then shut out of her own account. It finally transpired that she'd given the girl in her class who she frequently argues with her log in details.
Ordinarily I wouldn't particularly care but this child has stolen the things she bought with her birthday money as well as all the credits she had accrued in game play.
The girls had a brief exchange on WhatsApp and the class friend admitted she had taken my daughters diamonds etc and then changed her password.
I'm pretty sure I can take back control of the account for her, but everything is now lost. Her friend meanwhile, has all of my daughters diamonds and credits.

I messaged the mother of the child in question and whilst the message was read, it was ignored. So I approached her in a polite and friendly way in the playground this afternoon. I was hoping that she'd be shocked at her daughter's behaviour and perhaps we'd get an apology at least. I do not want to be reimbursed for the lost money, and stated that from the start.
The mother's reaction was just to shrug and waffle about not getting involved. Am I right to be mildly pissed off, or ridiculous for making an issue of it to begin with?

She plays it on a PC downstairs where I can keep an eye on her

Yet she still gave her login details to a friend. Clearly you are not keeping an adequate eye on her.

Shes 9. A child.

You need to take charge and be the adult here.

You allowed your 9yr old to spend £100 on a fictional game to improve her chances of winning. Dress it up whatever way you want, thats gambling.

The other mother probably didn't know what on earth you were going on about.

If someone told me that my child had stolen some diamond that existed only in the virtual world it wouldn't cross my mind that a nine year old may have spend £100 on them!

Unfortunately you can't make someone give a shit.

All you can do is control what happens with you and your dd from here. £100 may well end up being a relatively cheap lesson for you both considering what could have happened if your payment details are on the game.

I wouldn't bother with the mother again, and I would block her dd off the game. I would also change password and not let dd have it again until she is older/has proved she is responsible.

Hope she is ok op

DD says that the other girl asked for her login details and said she could help her with her avatar or something. DD was reluctant at first, but thought that she could trust her and then change her password after her 'friend' had helped. This conversation occurred on a FaceTime session with me milling around in the background. I didn't catch this part of the conversation, so hands up...I fucked up. But it was a conversation between two school friends, I didn't perhaps feel at that time that this was something I should be monitoring very closely.
She's gutted that she's lost her money, but more upset that she's been taken advantage of by someone she thought was a friend, even if they did argue a fair bit.
A massive lesson learned for her. But that's not my question. My question was whether I was wrong to expect the other mother to react to the theft at all.

Fairly certain the other girl committed an offence - whether that is a fraudulent type offence or a misuse of computer act offence. If she was older she could be in serious trouble had you opted to report it to the police.

The other mum should have engaged with it more. Not getting involved is not good enough.

Do some research to work out what offences might have been caused if she had been older, and write her a letter. If you want her to engage and want something done, copy the school. Regardless of the fact it happened outside of school, probably goes against the school’s various bullying etc policies.

Harsh lesson for your daughter on not sharing passwords etc.

I don’t think a child should be spending stuff on these sites- but they are designed to separate users from their money. It might be time to set more limits around her usage and access. She could have spent the money on magazines and sweets and it would be equally wasted- but I think there may be an addictive quality to the gaming sites that is a bit different to other consumerism. And not feeling like it’s ‘real’ money - so frictionless.

@Louise91417

You allowed your 9yr old to spend £100 on a fictional game to improve her chances of winning. Dress it up whatever way you want, thats gambling.

If it's something like Roblox or Minecraft it's not a case of winning or losing. Players can just buy stuff for the sake of...well, having more stuff to use in their make believe world. Not unlike real life really.

@SavoyCabbage The impression I got from the other mother is that she knows very well what I'm talking about when I mentioned stolen diamonds. She knows exactly what her daughter's done and doesn't appear to give a fuck. That's my issue with this. Shouldn't there be some contrition when your child steals?

And ffs it's not gambling. 😆

She didn't steal something worth £100 though. She stole something basically worthless that someone spent £100 on. There is a difference

My dc would love robux, v bucks, whatever it all is but they know I'd never allow them to spend real money on virtual money. You can still enjoy the games without all that. I'd be happier paying more for a game at the outset.

It is a harsh lesson to learn to have given details away & hope at least your dd does learn from it. Doesn't sound like other child will, but they aren't your problem so let it go. Dd got 'scammed' and gave away a legendary unicorn egg or something & she has been somewhat more wary since!

That mum sunds like a twat. One of the 'my kid can never do any wrong' by the sounds of it, who would no doubt be up in arms if anything similar happened to her kid

But I think allowing a 9 year old to spend a hundred quid on an online game is insane.

And your daughter should know better than giving her log in details to people.

Seems a lesson harshly learnt to me. Of couse though, that doesn't mean I have no sympathy for your daughter. But theres been bad all round here IMO.

@babybooyaa

I actually can't get passed the fact you let your 9 year old child spend £100 on pretend diamonds on a online game for children? The fact they even cost that much is beyond ridiculous but the fact you allowed it is outrageous in my opinion!

I have to admit, that's what I thought, too - I had to read it twice because I thought I must have misread the sum.

But TBH I would contact the police about this, It is effectively theft and she has admitted it. (I assume you have kept the message?) For this girl's own sake, she needs to be stopped now, before her thieving activities get her into a real trouble.

I don't think it's so terrible to spend £100 of her own money between her birthday in January and now I'd say that's actually quite restrained.

The police are unlikely to do aything about online currency IMO too. Its hard enough getting them to do anything about theft of actual items, nevermind pixels. Hell, I had a few thousand worth of fraud online once and was just told to log it on actionfraud, and told at the same time that actionfraud don't tend to actually investigate and it was mainly there for statistical purposes And to contact the company in question if I wanted a refund. Which of course didn't work as the company hadn't done wrong really..

Who hasn't spent a lot of money on shit to keep the kids entertained during lockdown?

I certainly know I have.

It's been really odd circumstances for everyone and we have probably all made parenting decisions we normally wouldn't.

£100 on games to keep your kid entertained for a couple of months seems reasonable to me under the circumstances.

You are right to be annoyed. I would hav come down like a ton of bricks if my child had stolen daughters item BUT your daughter gave her log on details and you cant make the other mum care sadly. Lesson learned - dont let dd have passwords. Even my 12 year old doesnt know passwords to his online accounts as I have them locked down so he cant give them to anyone. It's sad we have to do this but some families are wick

That's just nuts.

Stupid online games...what a complete and utter waste of money..£100?...
No wonder these ghastly games are pushed so hard like drugs at kids...it is so bloomin' profitable!

I’d be mortified if my DC stole something off another child, doesn’t matter if it’s something virtual or some piece of tat they bought from Smyths. The point here is not the spending of the money on the game, OPs child is allowed to spend as much or as little as she wants on something she enjoys. The point is that it has been stolen and should either be returned or reimbursed.

YABU on this. Kids games dont need £100s used on them it's ridiculous you allowed it. You need to teach her not to share passwords.

I hope they will help btw, if you chose that route, I just don't think they will. Sadly, parents like the mother of this child are a dime a dozen..don't give a shit and hide it under a 'not getting involved in kids arguments' layer

The police will not be interested in your parenting cock ups. They will probably just send you away with some advice on how to supervise your child’s online activities.
You put your child in this situation by treating her as much older than she is.

@Waveysnail

You are right to be annoyed. I would hav come down like a ton of bricks if my child had stolen daughters item BUT your daughter gave her log on details and you cant make the other mum care sadly. Lesson learned - dont let dd have passwords. Even my 12 year old doesnt know passwords to his online accounts as I have them locked down so he cant give them to anyone. It's sad we have to do this but some families are wick

Had to google ''Wick''.... :)

''No good''.... 👍 Sadly true. I lost the hard way lending two weeks' pay as a teenager.... and never got it back.

Well OP, that's you told. Get your child off the computer and get her a wooden stick and a hoop for some good clean fun.

Why is everyone overlooking the fact that the child did not give her login details to some unknown stranger over the Internet? She let her friend on her account. Her friend. It's not an internet safety thing it's a trusting a friend thing.

As OP said, it's the equivalent of giving house keys to a friend to feed the cat and having your friend rob you instead.

Spending money on gaming, skins / diamonds etc is the same as buying extra bits for your bike or extra trains for your train set. It's hard to get your head around if you're not a gamer because you don't actually have anything concrete to hold but it's not necessarily a waste of money.

OP it's happened to my son too, it's upsetting but hopefully your daughter will learn from it.

As is demonstrated on here, lots of people don't actually get it so I'm not surprised this girls mum doesn't seem interested. Not sure what you can do about it though.

Virtual bloody diamonds?

I’m struggling to get past the fact you allowed your daughter to spend £100 on a virtual game. Might as well flushed it. She doesn’t even understand the importance of not giving out passwords!

I wouldn’t even give mine a fiver for robux,
I’d rather teach her what a bloody con it is.

OP you should be concerned at your own parenting allowing a 9yo to spend £100 on literally nothing. You're not teaching a very responsible attitude to money.

Fwiw I don't think the other child "stole" anything, your DD was naive enough to give out her password. I expect the other child had no concept of what the diamonds had cost, because it's just bonkers.