DS (13) and unauthorised spending...

[superdoodle]

Don't want to drip feed but I'll try to keep it brief.

DS has ASD and a true love of online games, particularly those involving tanks . Tanks aren't really my thing but each one to their own.

The problem is that in the first 3 months of owning his Smartphone, he ran up £700 of unauthorised purchases, mainly on tank upgrades and missile launchers.

DS was read the riot act and had to pay the money back from a combination of his savings, doing extra chores etc. over a period of 9 months. I thought that the lesson had been learnt.

Unfortunately it seems not...after giving him Xbox live access (with a link to my credit card for subscription) he has already racked up £70 of spending in 6 weeks. I'd sat him down and explained very clearly that I was trusting him to be responsible and that nothing was to be purchased without consulting with me first.

I'm furious! I've now banned him from the Xbox etc until Xmas and swapped his Smartphone for a handset made in circa 1980 with no internet access.

What more can I do to make him learn that he is actually stealing from me? I don't want to blow this out of all proportion but I feel that he has let me down really badly. I don't want to raise a tank mad degenerate with no concept of truth and honesty. Has anyone had a similar experience or any ideas please?

Forgot to say I load up her iPad with I tunes vouchers no card is linked.

Totally agree bloodyteenagers.

Why should they cancel the debt due to his ASD? Op is aware of the ramifications of his condition; and she put him in a position where he could run up the debt. It's her responsibility, not his (or Apple's).
What's to stop anybody claiming their debts had been run up "accidentally" by their 6 year old, and demanding a refund, if refunds were given that lightly?

At 13 he is too young to be trusted with access to online spending. I read about a child spending around £700 on virtual nuts for a squirrel game.

I have absolutely no idea how these things work, but could he build up a credit with you by doing jobs around the house etc so that he can get the idea of earning before spending?

I believe my son when he says he didn't know; I could tell genuine surprise & horror.

What device? Purchases should be password protected, if not need to check settings.

It happens all the time!

Get him a prepaid card to use for such things. I got my severe autistic (but clever in several things but with odd logic and socially clueless, has no idea about money) son a Go Henry card. It has an app so he can see what is on it, what is going in and when and what has been spent and where,also you can set a task list for earning extra money. He uses that for in app purchases and things as otherwise I would be completely skint as he just doesn't get it. I can also add a spending limit to his account (done) and get real time updates on his spending so I can help him manage it so he can at least try to learn about money.

Hopefully you will get your money back. You made a big mistake but the gaming companies are really sneaky.

I can't believe you linked your credit card to his mobile ...what if he had lost it and some scuzzbag had got hold of it they could have run up a huge bill before your son had noticed his phone was missing.

Do you have any parental controls set up on your sons Xbox/tablets or computers ? I really hope you do. You were relying on his good sense not to use your credit card and it would be risky to rely on his 'good sense' not to access inappropriate material (not just porn) online.

Actually I would go a slightly different way to help understand.
What about getting him an account for teenager with a card. Have him link that card, HIS card to the games and ensure that each time he is buying something he has to enter his password.
This will 1- help him realize when he is buying something. It can be hard to realize that when right in the middle if the game.
2- because it's HIS money, when it's gone, it's gone. So he will have to learn to be careful and how spending a lot on games stops him from doing other things. Encourage him to check his balance regularly too.

But why should these companies give back money, when the op and others could have made simple steps to prevent this from happening? If you don't know, you check first. You don't blindly give a device to someone without doing research first surely? No you put on parental controls. These are there to be used.

If you (general) are totally clueless about these controls, then see if your local school are doing anything to educate parents about this. More and more schools, and outreach departments are running workshops. If it's an apple device, the people in store will happily show you and more.. Not knowing is not an excuse.

Ipad, @IAGTBF.
So come to think of it, he must have been 13 at the time.
Can't explain how geeky a family we are. How about if I say that DS barely understands anything about computers (by our standards) but was happily swapping hard-drives & graphic cards between desktops the other night?

I think unplanned purchases by kids is easily done, too.

How to restrict purchases on an iPad
support.apple.com/kb/ht6088

How to restrict purchases on android
support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1626831

How to restrict purchases on Xbox
support.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-one/security/prevent-unauthorized-purchasesttp:support.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-one/security/prevent-unauthorized-purchases

Thanks for the feedback, some interesting responses!

It's not that I'm clueless about password protection etc, but I was hopeful DS would learn to regulate his own use and to ask when he wanted to purchase items. I was clearly naive in that hope and looking for too much too soon! I'm not in any way trying to avoid payment of the bills, my mistake (although I agree that the companies are very sneaky and make it extremely easy to run up large bills).

TripTrap and Where am I - thanks for the tips about getting DS his own account to link to his online spending, I'm going to look into that when we let him loose again online