ASN spent £200 on game refusing to refund

[MissesG]

I am teaching my sixteen year old daughter with ASN about money. She is cognitively underdeveloped and behaves as someone much younger. first she started with smaller amounts of money and less that she had to buy with now she has got her own debit card and we built up to bigger amounts which she was handling mostly well.

But one night she got carried away impulsively bought something expensive on moviestarplanet over all she spent in the region of £200 on the online game in the space of 2 months with the debit card and used up the virtual assets she got with it. I only found out when she didnt have the money to use on what it was intended for! I was expecting this sort of thing might happen, but know most places protect people against this sort of thing and thought shed have the money back soon. I checked and sure enough according to their terms, they dont accept purchases made by under 18s without parental permission, nor do they accept cards used by under 18s.

First I got her to contact the business and be honest that she had done it without my permission and used her under 18s card, with receipts of every transaction. The response she got was that all sales are final and that they will not be refunding! I sent my own email explaining to confirm, and they told me the same thing and that all sales are final and that the case is closed!

She really needs that £200. I am really disgusted and angry and have now told them she has ASN and warned them that I will be opening up a dispute with the bank. Im not sure if ive got a leg to stand on or what that entails or if moviestarplanet can still refuse to refund.

Firstly, if you are concerned that this may happen again due to her ASN, you will need to contact social services and request assistance in obtaining power of attorney over her finances until she is old enough to be responsible herself. Understandably, that would require a lot of evidence to complete, but might be best moving forward.
Secondly, I would look at various programmes to monitor her online access, we use Qustodio and we are informed every time our teens access certain sites and permission needs to be granted before any purchase is made. As trust is built, the level of content we actually review gets less and less, but if required we could see contents of all forums, texts and social media messages as well as any searches carried out on search engines, you tube etc.

Yes it is sad. I feel a bit sad for her too. I remember spending money on a game when I was younger and then realising I wasn't ever going to see that money again. All you can do is learn from it. You said you were teaching her about money do you think she will understand she got out of control with it? She's still had the enjoyment of the items from the game though.

Let's hope your daughter has learnt her lesson. She has willingly purchased in game items and had enjoyed them .
So no she should not be allowed a refund, live and learn .
I think you were very short sighted not to keep a closer eye on her spending.
She won't be the first teenager to waist money on in game purchases ( my son was fifa points ) but they as some point they do learn from it .
Can you set parental controls? I received a message every time my son made a purchase.

You can't get POA for a young adult until they are 18. Up until that point you can be in control of their finances if they have ASN/SEN.

Also no SS involvement required, it can be done yourself online or via a solicitor.

"The money wasnt for spending on games though."

Erm if she's earned it I'm not sure that's for you to decide! Spending your hard earned money on crap is a right of passage for teens and an important lesson for her. Honestly this is good for her in the long run. You learn once money is gone it's gone. I hope you haven't got her hopes up saying 'don't worry I'll get it back'

OK then, look at it this way.

Say a parent of a child who was not able to understand the dangers of crossing a road without holding on to that parents hand, let them cross unattended and then they got injured.

That parent knows full well that "it might happen" so would it be the car drivers fault or the parents?

The parent is there to parent, yet you call me "rude and judgmental" for pointing that out.🙄

This is on the OP and being nothing but brutally honest with her would be doing her DD a disservice, so insult me all you like.

Think of it as a valuable, real life lesson
She had £200, she spent £200 and now she doesn't have £200 so, hopefully, lesson learnt
It's more of a lesson than getting or expecting a refund

The blame, and the consequences and experience are on you, I'm sorry if that sounds harsh. You could have the banking set up on your phone also via the app- in order to be able to monitor the spending. You knew she was most likely naive/ impulsive enough the 'something would happen' and didn't monitor the situation. It's an expensive lesson, earned by both of you. She no longer has the funds to do other things. You are now (keenly) aware she can't impulse control. Use it for the experience it is, and put better monitoring in place, to try and ensure this doesn't happen again, whilst she has the 'safe' consequence now whilst living at home that she needs to think harder about purchases.

I have a 17 year old son with ASD who got his first contactless card just over a year ago. There's a vending machine in his college where everything is £1 - crisps, sweets, drinks all £1 each and it only takes contactless. The first day he had the card he spent £8 on crap that he didn't need and that would probably have cost less than half in the Tesco down the road. Should I have insisted college refund him? Or the bank? Or (what I actually did) talked to him about responsible card use?

Oh and of course you can monitor her account. Get 3rd party access and you'll be able to see it on your bank app. It's nothing like controlling a stranger.

If I were you I'd keep pushing, and quote the part of the t&Cs that says they don't accept payment from under 18s, and send them a screenshot of her account which shows the date of birth (presumably showing she is under 18) provided. Then ask them why they took payment from her in breach of the terms and conditions that they themselves set. I'm not saying you will succeed but this is what I would do.

I don't know why everyone's giving you such a hard time OP. Your vulnerable child has bought stuff online on a site that says you have to be over 18 to buy or have parents permission. You say she put in her correct date of birth so it was clear she wasn't over 18 but they took the money anyway. Even though you can prove she is not 18 they're not interested.

I would put something on all their social media that although their terms say over 18 purchases only they are knowingly taking money from children and refusing to return it. At least then hopefully others will be aware and it puts them in a bad light.

I don't know if debit card purchases are protected in the same way that credit card purchases tend to be. But still worth talking over with the bank, they may have things they can put in place for disabled people such as no overdraft or fees, as she gets older a third party mandate might be worth considering depending on how vulnerable she is.

If you can't get the money back is she able to understand what has happened here? If she can't then maybe you need to step back on the independence as she is still a child and only let her have supervised use of the card.

Use this as a teachable lesson for her. She now doesn't have money for something she wants because she spent it all on something else. It reinforces the importance of budgeting and planning.

As for the refund issue. No. When she made those purchases, she will have clicked something to say she agrees that she is over 18 and has authority to use the payment method. The company is not obligated to refund money when the purchaser willingly lied to them.

If, in your opinion, she doesn't have the mental capacity to make purchases with her money, then it is your responsibility as her parent to protect her. If she does have capacity, then this is what happens when she spends her money. It's gone.

This wasn’t a one-off. It was an established pattern of repeated behaviour over 2 months that went unchecked and unnoticed. That’s a long time.

sounds like you are trying to put the blame on MSP.

it’s not their fault your DD ticked the “permission” box or that a vulnerable teen wasn’t supervised.

they did nothing wrong.

concentrate on what to do going forward so this doesn’t happen again.
that is the issue - not trying to blame someone else.
your responsibility to keep your DD safe.

Could you have set up an email notification so that you would have been told every time she purchased something?

She used her own card @MissesG thats why. Her card, her choice, her money. That’s why they are not refunding. It may be a different outcome if she had used your card.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the lesson is only learned when there are actual consequences for making unwise decisions.

You don't say what the money "should" have been used for but given that she is still living at home, I'd actually consider leaving this as a loss for your daughter (even if you could get a refund - which is unlikely anyway)

It's harsh but some teens and adults (particularly those with certain ASN/SEN) only really learn from actual experience. And you getting her a refund takes away the natural consequence of making bad financial decisions.

Yes, £200 is a lot (especially when you're only 16) but much better than doing something similar with £2,000 or £20,000 and when she's not living at home in the safety of her family.

Anyway, good luck.

@MissesG is it via an Apple device? Apple are good at refunding in game purchases by children

Does your daughter regret the purchase OP? Does she understand that the £200 has gone and she will have to earn that amount again?

You are sorry, but is she?

She had it, she spent it, she hasn't got it any more. That's how it works with money. All kids need to learn that and now she knows.

It doesn't say under 18s can't purchase. It says you must have cardholders permission. DD is the cardholder.

It does seem like you were very irresponsible here. You should have been checking her bank balance every few days, especially as you say you were actively teaching her to manage money. How?

You screwed up and that money is gone. It happens. It doesn't matter. I suggest you get her a GoHenry card now, rather than a conventional one, and that way you can set manual limits on her spending. Do you know about that? Look up GoHenry on their website and they will have explainers to help you.

What's great is that you can allow/prevent the card being used at ATM's, in stores or online. So my children can't use theirs online or at an ATM but they can buy things in physical shops.

You can also set limits on individual transactions and weekly spending, and you get a notification via YOUR GoHenry app every time she spends money, which means you can track what she gets up to and talk to her about her choices in real time, not when you discover huge spends months after the fact.

It is not the responsibility of this company to manage your daughter's developmental delays, it is YOUR responsibility.

I think a managed account like GoHenry or one of their competitors - specifically one aimed at CHILDREN - would be a good learning experience for both of you.

Are there no ways to put parental controls on the game or the device she used to play it on which would have avoided this? Most games marketed for children offer these.

Yes its a good way to learn?

These things happen, as an ASN teacher (additional support needs for everyone asking) I've seen and heard it all. Parents have had their last £80 spent on online gaming, some have had a refund and some haven't. Online gaming is not suitable for all children with ASN to be playing unsupervised, we always encourage parents to stick to games consoles with games on discs that you can't buy more content for. Or avoid the games altogether where possible.

Anyway, I'm not trying to preach to you, I'm just saying this happens all the time and the companies can't just issue refunds to everyone saying 'ah but my kid has asn and that money wasn't for games', so im afraid I think the money is lost! Its a lot of money, hopefully she will have learned a little bit about the value of money, but if not I think you maybe need to have a bit more of a plan in place for her finances. Maybe have an account that doesn't have a chip and pin card, like a savings account that xan be accessed in branch, and put most of the money in that account. Then leave her with a small amount on the debit card that she can spend on gaming or whatever she chooses?