Help, DS (15) has spent 300 quid on in app purchases that our phone company will bill us this week

[Lovelygreenhills]

His phone is linked to my DHs phone. DH spotted this late last night. We both feel sick and haven't slept as we haven't got this amount of money to blow. All receipts went to DSs phone and no alerts to us. DH has a zero spend cap on his phone and DS's phone is linked to his. DS, who is neurodiverse but not formally assessed as waiting on CAHMS list, is very upset but clearly didn't think about the consequences of racking up these costs and where the money would come from. DH is ringing our phone provider today (EE), any tips very welcome to see if we have a leg to stand on to avoid paying this money, I suspect unlikely though.

Not heard from apple yet, but me and DH have both been in touch with EE who have added a 0 spend cap and no in app purchases on our kids phones. I really think this should be the default rather than a discretionary option.

These posts annoy me. Your child has purchased those things and used them and now you want a refund. Why? He spent it, enjoyed using it. Being nd isn't an excuse.

Why should apple give it back? Consequences of actions springs to mind. But no doubt the child will be used as an excuse because they didn't know better...

Please don't beat yourself up, and honestly having a diagnosis wouldn't have made any difference. When your kid is ND it's very hard to walk the line between giving them independence and the risks that come with that versus over protecting them and not letting them learn from their mistakes. Many, many parents and kids, ND and NT learn the hard way. For a kid that has impulse control issues, it's very hard for them to learn from theoretical rather than real consequences. This is horrible now but could be a great life lesson that all your kids will learn from.

Hi I promised an update. Managed to get 50 quid refunded from Apple for subscriptions bought but they wouldn’t refund one off purchases on the basis that it was ‘consumed immediately’. Escalated it but no joy and give up, even though my DS basically spent our money with no authority. A hard lesson to learn. We have a repayment plan in place with him and he is £28 into paying off the remaining 250 quid so is going to have a pretty miserable year losing his pocket money and other monies.

On a positive note, after being on the waiting list for over 3 years, received an assessment date… in August! Hope that it’s helpful.

one of my sons did this after he got an Xbox for Christmas. He is much younger (8 at the time). DH set it up with his PayPal account and never thought to password protect purchases. He then panicked my called from work on Boxing Day to tell me that out DS had spent £120 and his PayPal had pinged him lots of notifications. It was on Fortnite. Epic Games refunded some of it as the things he had bought were unused but some of the rest of it we had to pay for. I was annoyed at DH and there wasn’t really anyone to blame beyond him as DS genuinely didn’t realise he was running up a bill and was upset when we told him. We now use passwords on anything with purchasing ability.

You can lock down purchases on phones yourself. You don’t have to contact the company even. This is a basic part of setting up a phone before you hand it to your child. It’s a tough lesson learned for all of you, but on you should take to all household devices for review, not just the phone.

Yes DS managed to spend it as his phone was linked to my DHs EE account. Whilst DH has put a zero limit on additional charges he hadn’t ticked the additional box to prevent in app purchases. It’s very annoying as EE would be aware that my DSs phone is linked to his parents and the default should be not allowing in app purchases unless you opt in. Also the receipts for the purchases only went to DSs email in box and not DHs so we had no awareness until the monthly bill came. Makes my blood boil but it’s done now. Sorry you had a similar experience. Guess it couldn’t have been a lot worse if we hadn’t spotted it when we did.

This is the best way to handle it - he needs to learn and having to pay back the ££ will be a good lesson.

It is annoying that it is so easy for kids to rack up these costs - yes, they shouldn’t do it but these game purchases are slightly addictive, I think, and companies make it very easy for kids to get carried away. Default settings need to be much tighter.

I got it written off but my child was younger at the time. It’s worth a try. Going forward, open a pre paid type account with single use disposeable cards so your child can never do this again.

It’s one of those things- it’s frustrating but lesson learned. I can’t get my head around the fact there is big business to be made from buying skins and currency in games anyway. My son once spent £7.99 on a pizza for his character to eat in the game. I could have bought him 2 or 3 actual pizzas from sainsburys for that 😂