Roblox - money lost

[Sarahr22]

Hello,
I am sat in tears. not knowing where to turn. I realised today that my 8 year old has been playing Roblox (which I signed her up to do and put all safety blocks on) but has been making in-app purchases which over the last few weeks amount to nearly £2600. She didn't realise it was real money and I consider myself at fault for not checking - with all the child safety blocks on I didn't realise this would happen. I have hardly any money in my account and am not working at present. I have tried Roblox (no way of calling them just have to fill in a form), Apple (as it was on an iPad and they refused to help) and discussed with my bank that suspicious activity should have been picked up - they refused to help and suggested reporting my child for fraud. I appreciate I should have been more vigilant but any ideas or experiences as I simply don't know where to turn. Thank you

OP, try Apple again and if that doesn't work try again and again. They can and do refund money in these situations.

Good luck. I still think there is a very very good chance you will get your money back.

Fair play to you for admitting you were at fault. Plenty of parents seem to do this.

I've never had a card attached to my Apple accounts. I put gift vouchers on them instead so that I can only lose £50 or less.

OP are you sure that £2,600 was spent?
Robux bought on an iPhone or iPad are limited to 800 at a time, which costs £8.99. This means that your daughter would have had to have made 288 separate transactions which over a week doesn't seem possible. Even if she played 12 hours a day straight she'd be putting three transactions an hour through - does this make sense to you?

@EmergencyPractitioner as you’re telling OP to seek legal advice, what do you think the legal basis of her claim is?

Yes all spent - there are varying charges but often 4 or 5 £19.99’s in one day! I have never played Roblox to understand it. I know as a parent I should have done!

I've just looked on the roblox app through the Google play store, and it's so easy to buy £99 worth of rublox which would be charged to my bank card. I can't believe that a child could do this so easily, I mean who spends that knowingly? It needs limits putting on it because it looks like they know exactly what kids are doing, ridiculous.

A bit late I know, but you can restrict in-app purchase on Roblox - google it and you'll get the instructions.

I've known a number of cases such as these where they have received a full refund. Bear in mind Roblox have not provided any goods or services, so they aren't actually losing any money.

I mean who spends that knowingly?

ItsSpittingEverybodyIn Quite a few people.

Of course the majority who play these games spend little to no money, but there are quite a few people out there who will regularly spend large amounts of money on these games (and they’re the ones keeping the game free to play to others because that’s where the app makes it’s money).

Apple refunded a much smaller amount that my dc spent, they thought it was free. I think about 50 dollars in total.
So they definitely can refund stuff.
There was a charge in the Apple account and a drop down box which included a child bought option.
They then had an auto reply saying they would investigate and the money was automatically refunded to my credit card a while later.

Have you tried Apple through the chat talking to a real person? I had an app subscription that the automated service refused to refund. A real human apple person refunded.

@midwestsummer
There policy is to refund one child transaction. Not a hundred over a couple of weeks.

Every purchase would have triggered an email. OP claims they havent, but they do so my guess is she set up the account with a different email address or something. It's also a parents job to monitor their child on tablets.
Apple will refund one transaction without arguing but will expect a parent to notice before £2600 is spent.

This doesn't mean they wont refund. They wont want bad publicity, it just makes it harder.

There’s a major difference between £50 and £2600 when asking for a goodwill refund

No helpful advice, but a bit of solidarity. My son did the same on his Xbox some years ago. He had the most amazing football team, and I was minus £500! So easily done. Your bank should have flagged the spending. We got it back eventually. I hope you do too.

I think the real issue may be that the funds came from a business account.

My DH's iPhone died one month out of guarantee (no damage, pristine etc). Apple said they wouldn't replace as it was a business phone but had it been a personal phone they would have been more lenient.

This just doesn't make sense - am absolutely not suggesting the OP did anything wrong, but I get a statement from Apple every month for extra icloud storage which is 79p a month. Are they really suggesting that someone can use £2600 of in game app and it won't trigger any verification other than the initial linking of the credit card?

I have to jump through more hoops to get groceries from Tesco.

Yeah, I get an email immediately every time I make an Apple purchase regardless of the amount.

It sounds like the email used by the account that bought the purchases is one OP doesn’t regularly access.

The email address was the old one attached to the business. Not been used for ages and domain had expired. That said on checking it all with Apple the new email was on there so it’s not clear what went wrong. I have spent hours and hours on phone to Apple today. They have no further escalation. Roblox won’t do anything as it was used on an iPad (although Apple insist they don’t get a penny and all monies go directly to Roblox) , have tried bank again but as actions taken by daughter they won’t accept it was unauthorized. I appreciate the blame falls with me and accept that but it just seems so not right - Roblox, Apple etc surely don’t intend this type of situation to happen and it was all a genuine mistake. Child locks etc were on device and account but again my error as I believed this covered everything but it was all the usual child internet safety stuff. There were over 1000 transactions in a few weeks and nothing alerted this as suspicious behaviour to the providers or the bank. I feel there is nothing else I can do now and no avenues left. I appreciate everyone’s help and support so much.

I would continue to push getting a newspaper or consumer website to pick it up.
It isn't as though what was bought actually has any significant costs associated with it.
My dc had several purchases which came through over two days.
I understand that there is a difference in the amounts but it is only computer code that the dc are buying.

Your DH needs to speak to his accountant about how on earth to explain these transactions from a business account. That's not his money (as I think you realise, since it was set aside to pay the tax bill). It belongs to the company and the company is going to have provide receipts for it. I've once accidentally bought something personal from my business account and refunded it at once. I realise you can't do that, but you do need some advice on the company side of the problem as well.

I agree with midwestsummer, it would worth trying to get a newspaper or consumer website to take it up for you - it's a good cautionary tale for other parents about the dangers of in-app purchases (and inexplicably linking a business account with a non-existent email address to something like iTunes) so they may be interested. Perhaps MoneySavingExpert or Money Guardian?

nothing alerted this as suspicious behaviour to the providers or the bank
But as far as the bank were concerned, your company was just pissing money away on iTunes. The consumer protections aren't there, although I am quite surprised it didn't trigger a fraud alert.

As has been repeatedly said to you, you need to stop calling them.

Email them, present it as entirely new and don’t mention your previous phone calls as they will automatically block.

And it doesn’t matter if the new email was on there if the old one is the default as all transaction emails will have gone straight to there; the onus is on you to clear out old emails.

Thank you. Appreciate your comments. Yes we are in touch with accountant about the business bank account and what to do. I am surprised nothing triggered on the bank account. We may try another discussion with bank again tomorrow as I expect their first response is always to say no. Apple were adamant our only course of action was the bank but I suppose they would say that!

I have tried different avenues of contacting Apple (phone, chat and email) but as soon as they have the Apple ID username it all links back together on their system and they link it with all the incident case notes. Not sure how I can therefore start afresh? x

This is going to sound so insensitive, but this is maybe a good lesson for you.

Something that we are told to drill into our kids is online safety and protocols, and its something that as parents, we are told to be vigorous in. So, anytime you download an app, you go through the purchase blocking in the app rather than rely on the tablet if the tablet is linked to an account.

My 7 year old knows that if he is using a tablet and it saging any words like buy, purchase, confirm £sign, shop, cart, basket etc then he is not allowed to do it without showing me. He can tell me all the buzz words and understand that £ sign means real money.

Their tablets are amazon fire kids, and they cannot get out of the kids area so purchase are literally impossible but any other tablet and he knows. You say your daughter didnt realise it was real money
.. she was selecting packs with a £ sign beside them and asked to press a confirm button and then she received items for her game. At her age, there is no excuse for her to not understand that she was making purchases. Its really awful that it cost so much and its disgusting that they wont give you your money back, but it's a good lesson for you all. Have a talk with her. Show her different apps and the different ways they display their purchases. Talk about the £ sign. You need to be vigilant.

Can you do a chargeback one your credit card? Have a look on mse for how to do it.

Not sure if it applies with it being a business card, rather than consumer. It may be worth looking into though.

Have you contacted the journalists who deal with money issues at the Guardian/Mail/Times?

I no It's no help now but every time my kids buy on an app I get a receipt via email. Your PayPal or bank details must be on your account along with an email
address??