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?

I can understand the other mum not wanting to get involved. She probably thinks it’s fairly trivial stuff - it wouldn’t occur to me that a child of 9 would have online content ‘worth’ that much. I’d also be surprised if the little friend was aware of it.

Police will not get involved for children of this age and unlikely to for online assets.

Minors in other countries have been prosecuted for theft of items in games (weapons etc, by stealing log in details) (in Holland). Don’t know if it’s happened here, but 9yrs is too young anyway.

It’s a sharp lesson for your daughter. I think those being critical are lucky to not have had a kid even accidentally order something on iTunes or amazon etc. It’s not exactly the same but it’s very easy to spend real money in the virtual world. Really, whether it was diamonds in a game or glitter nail polish - not qualitatively different and you were taking the view of it’s her birthday money. But this probably shows that she’s not ready for online spending.

To help her in managing future money, why not set up a jar with the money in it - and then she needs to hand over physical money when she wants to spend. Even if that’s online, she can give you the cash for a transaction on your card?

May be a lost cause with the other mum. Is there a parents whatsapp group that you can snark on?! (That’s terrible advice, I am petty).

With 3 teen girls I can tell you no matter how many times you have the "safe" talks it all goes straight out the window at the first opportunity. Whether that's tech, sex, safety, boundaries.

And when one fucks up and gets punished, lectured, grounded, phone removed another will be repeat the same bloody mistakes.

Pre-teens and teens seem to be fundamentally created to balls it up and get it to trouble. Mostly they seem to life stupid no matter how bright they are academically.

I've spent money on Pokemon Go for my DS during lock down. I dont really understand the outrage at a 9 year old spending money on a computer game, I spent my birthday money on my playstation at that age.
If someone told me that my child had taken control of someone else's on line account and taken credit from it I would be fucking furious.

@Lucindainthesky there are two concepts that are relevant when you’re talking about theft or deception/ fraud offences:

• authority. If I give you £20 to buy me some food, you can’t use it to buy cigarettes. The other girl lied about the reason for use of the log in.

• deception/ representations made- again, she claimed to be helping for something, only to turn around and divert the assets.

It might not be theft (thé intention to deprive another permanently of property) but it’s definitely some kind of wrong-un behaviour (and if she was an adult, might be criminal - but 9 year olds can’t commit crime).

I would be ashamed if my daughter did that.

9 year olds are far too young to have their own passwords for accounts that have £100 of credit etc.

I never let my kids spend money like that in games, or any money, actually - do kids really spend this sort of money?

Why on earth would she give someone her log-in details?

But Yes, the other mother is behaving appallingly by not dealing with it.

YANBU, I kind of agree with PP that in future you shouldn't let your DD spend money on this game but regardless what the other girl did was theft. I would hide this thread as you won't get useful responses.

@ChesterDrawsDoesntExist is quite right to say that it’s the equivalent of giving a friend house keys and illustrates very nicely why we don’t let 9 year olds take charge of our house keys - because they aren’t old enough to be responsible for items of value. If you give little kids expensive things like house keys or virtual diamonds or even real diamonds you have to accept that they will not be as responsible as adults and might well lose them or give them away.

@Everysinglebloodytime

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.

Things too can ''see'' and use, tangible things...They are different, surely.

Virtual things, that exist just on a screen?
I find it really hard to get my head around that.
I can get why kids want to play online games, but not to spend so much on them.
Do the 'diamonds' enable you to gain new levels or something? {philistine here}

£100 spent in over 9 months. That's £11 a month playing an online game which she loves. Come on people, that is NOT an unreasonable amount. My kids have could have spent far more than that on shitty magazines with plastic toys on or even bloody Kinder Eggs! All useless tat but MN would no doubt deem that acceptable because it's not a computer game?

@oakleaffy money in your account exists on a screen. You can swap it for things in the real world, but doesn’t money in your account just on its own make you feel something- secure, warm and fuzzy?

People who like gaming like to buy stuff in games. It’s not for me but not really any different than people who like to buy things (collectors items?) that I don’t appreciate. It enhances their experience of the real or virtual world. shrugs

Fuck me, £100 on gambling. For a 9 year old.

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.

Of course the othe child will have known, and of course they stole something I do think the hundred quid situation is quite silly, and obviously giving your details out is a bit daft (but shes 9..) and..its a lesson hard learnt...but come on.

If the kid didn't know the diamonds were real money etc etc, then why nick them, snd switch them onto another account in the first place?

She knew. She did it on purpose. She was handed the keys to the account and wiped it. Its unfortunate and yes, bad, but lets not make out that she did nothing wrong.

This thread has reminded me of when this happened to me. Same thing, but minus the real money though. I was on neopets (did anyone else have one of these? I think my account stille exists actually..). Someone in my class saw me on it, and convinced me to give my details so they could 'make me a great pet', then proceeded to wipe my account clean or anything 'rare'. I was furious. But was basically told..well learn from it, you are lucky it was only pixels. Which is true. I have never given any account details out since so it WAS learnt, but felt so bloody harsh at the time. I still rememer the horrid feeling in my stomach when I realised what had happened too! And that was fee stuff, that I had played maybe a few hours to 'earn'. Would have been even more gutted with cash, and especially a hundred quids worth of cash!

It's the equivalent of buying 2 or 3 playstation games, which is the same thing, to go off and live in a fantasy gaming world for a while. I really don't get the outrage on here.

I am sure you could report it to the game company and explain as they would be able to check and reverse it

She clearly doesn't understand the value of money yet, or at least such large amounts.

All of this outrage at spending money on an online game just shows how out of touch a lot of people are. She is effectively paying for entertainment or an experience. No different to going to the cinema, playing crazy golf, bowling, swimming, even a holiday to go to extremes. All these things you are paying money for the experience but ultimately you leave with nothing. She has probably had hours of entertainment for the money she has paid.

But yes, a very good lesson learned regarding online security.

You allowing her to spend a hundred pounds, A HUNDRED POUNDS, on a stupid nothing game, is why she will never understand or learn financial sense. And it will be your fault. Im being harsh op because my own parents were the same with me and I ended up with debt and credit cards etc because meh, I can just spend it on what I want, right? It took me into my adulthood to learn how to be financially responsible. You've made a huge mistake. But you have time to rectify how to teach her.

Well it is not like she broke into her money box and put coins in a slot, she has access to online money at 9 for gods sake you as the parent should be making sure she does not have access to online funds.

Might have been mentioned actually as only skim read, but have you tried explaining the situation to the people who own the game/reporting the theft? Just in my neopets situation, I did report it. I didn't get it all back (IIRC they purposely held some of the stuff back to 'teach me' basically, which I understand but I dont think they would do this with actual cash involved..) but I got some of it, and the other persons account was 'frozen'. As they could clearly see, different IP signed into my account, moved stuff thats worth stuff immediately, then logged out. So clearly was all on purpose and for the reason of theft.

Might seem a bit harsh to potentially get another 9 year olds account frozen like but...she did cheat and steal so maybe she should learn a lesson too..

Might not work that way though, creaters might not care, might not be able to report, etc. But its worth looking into.

@Hamm87 potentially, but in sharing user details she probably breached user agreement and therefore they will likely say they can’t do anything.

Not out of touch, my teen is a PC gamer. He carefully researches games by reading about them and watching videos before spending any money. He doesn't make in game purchases.

God people on here just love a pile on and a chance to beat a mother with a big stick and tell her what a terrible parent she is. OP has been perfectly pleasant and several posters have just been rude.

OP, I wouldn't be really annoyed by this too. Its stealing, but going by the mothers response, or lack of, its not surprising her dd has done that.

*Things too can ''see'' and use, tangible things...They are different, surely.

Virtual things, that exist just on a screen?
I find it really hard to get my head around that.
I can get why kids want to play online games, but not to spend so much on them.
Do the 'diamonds' enable you to gain new levels or something? {philistine here}*

It depends on the game (I don't know the one that the OP is talking about and I'm no expert), for some it might be getting to the next level, for some it might be new characters, for some it might be 'money' they can use to buy a new car or outfit.

I cant get over the fact that a 9 year old got 400 quid for her birthday! wtf?