GoHenry card - cautionary tale - my son spent £4,000 over less than 3 months

[VPC]

I got my 11 year old a GoHenry card a year or so ago to get him to understand how to earn money by setting him chores which would get remunerated from his account on which I had put some pocket money and how to save. My 11 year old ended up spending just short of GBP4,000 over 3 months on online gaming sites using his GoHenry card. I did not even know this was even possible. They did nothing to alert me. They say on their website that you can set spending limits and get notifications in real time. I did not realise this was happening as auto top up from my account was on and notifications were off. I was not even aware of those functions as they are not well advertised. I was made to think by their own advertising that this card was just a pocket money card, not a debit or credit card. I think the marketing and advertising of this company is misleading. They have refused all responsibility for what has happened as they said that it was up to parents to enable/disable those functions on the app and some kids do spend vast amounts on online gaming and therefore this triggered no alerts on their system. I feel a duty to warn other parents that this is a risk for children who do fall into these gaming website traps that a GoHenry card can easily be misused.

I can't believe this is true. My kids both had go Henry cards. Every time they spent anything i got a notification. Plus even with auto top ups it doesn't go in to the childs account. It sits in the parents part of gohenry. As a parent you set up how much your kid gets paid into their account. It wouldn't just keep moving money from the parents bank account to their GoHenry account and then to the childs account.

I find it so odd that anyone would pay for GoHenry when you can get a free bank account for a child… what a waste of 4 quid each month…

I’ll maybe try Barclay then, thanks. It was so stressful with the building society her child trust fund/now isa was in that it was worth paying £4 a month!

My DD is 11 and I opened her a NatWest account last month, totally online, didn’t set foot in the branch

@HeChokedOnAChorizo

I'm not with NatWest so I can't do that.

Banks are generally better than building societies at having flexible options.

If you have an HSBC account it looks like you don’t need to go to a branch either. It may be easiest to open your own account and then leverage it to sort your daughters.

Go Henry is absolutely awful. Completely.over priced and no automatic controls. My DPs son had one which was stolen and they couldn't even stop the card and all his money was taken.
I use Revout with my kids and when my son was mugged, we'd stopped the card using my app before the perp had made it to the shops 15 mins later.

@LittleBearPad

It's ok, I'm happy with the card she has. I was just saying there is a place for pre pay cards. I'm not at all fussed about changing it to an account at this point; as I said originally it's the least of our worries with her. Thanks though.

I use revolut, pretty happy with it so far. No automatic transfers but its really easy to move money. I have pocket money set up each week.

I also get little alerts each time they spend money. I feel like a spy on their life buts its fun knowing!

I love that too with Rooster. ‘DS1 has spent £7.56 in Costa Coffee’ oh has he 👀👀

That's not true. You can see on my screenshot before that the parent account can block the card from being used.

This is 100% on you. As a parent to an 11 year old you should be very clued up on how to set limits to devices and such, the card is no different. Why would they be set up automatically? It is an optional benefit that you apparently opted out of. I know it’s awful but I think you’re in denial about whose responsibility this is

Sorry I'm not clear why he had 4 grand on his card.

So your issue is he spent the money in his account and it was a lot? Or that the money was not in his account like an overdraft?

Was years ago so maybe it's moved on since. His son definitely lost everything at the time and as it wasn't a bank it wasn't covered by the normal protections.
Revolut is free and has all.the same features so I cannot see the point of GoHenry anyway

Also a child's passport is £54 - so 13 months of GO Henry payments then your kids get a free passport for the next 4 years.

Why on earth was your son's account linked to your bank account?! That's not even possible on Rooster. That doesn't even make sense. I can put money into the Rooster account but the child can't take money from my account. It's not a thing!

Yea you can absolutely block the card.

i think the problem here is that many parents dont spend the time finding out what to do before giving the card to their children.

we have moved to rooster and i find it infuriatingly worse than gohenry. The lessons are paper based, whereas with gohenry they were online and every time ds completed a lesson on GH it paid him £1 automatically. But i still got a notification every time. And anyone other than the parent cannot put money directly to the child’s part.

I don’t think @VPC is coming back

How do we go on in the meantime? And when I looked into it I needed a passport too. And there’s no point getting the DC passports unless both adults can travel too anyway.

Isn’t there a quote about poverty and boots…

i recommend a Hyperjar account for a child - it’s a pre paid credit card so can’t overspend. I also love it for budgeting. Only thing child can’t do is withdraw cash but this has never been an issue as everywhere takes card now.

OP I do have sympathy as I would expect my bank to flag unusual expenditure and believe Go Henry should do the same. I would try and plead your case as unauthorised spending by a minor to the gaming companies.

Because she can clearly afford it. But is trying to make her lack of attention Go Henry's problem

I had a quick look on their website recently as my DSD is about to turn 6 and I'd like to get her one. It was quite clear on their website about the spending limits and auto top ups. Maybe it was different at the time you set up your son's account but it was pretty clear to me and I was only browsing.

I think that you can have a basic bank card at 11 anyway.Also never have more than £50 on it! Go Henry seems a little off here though