xbox live - just discovered that DS1 has spent over £800!!!

[KOKOagainandagain]

Does anyone have any expertise? Xbox is a mystery to me. DS1 flicks from screen to screen without actually reading the messages. He appears to have been downloading the same add ons to fifa multiple times so that within half an hour he has spent about £250. So on a couple of occasions over a month he has clocked up £850.

How do I prevent this - I was not involved in the setting up of the account so don't know how to change it. He has it password protected so I can't change it without his knowledge.

Also, do you think there is any chance of recovering the money for duplicate purchases?

This is the last thing he and I need at the moment. How do I deal with it? It is clearly not OK but he is likely to react very badly and see it as yet another sign of his 'stupidity'.

[Breezy1985]

My ds did this a couple of months ago, spent £150 in minutes, definitely contact them, they were so helpful and I got a full refund

[sweetteamum]

Have you had any look with Microsoft?

My ds has literally just bought more - between dec/jan he spent almost £90!! All his money of course, but it's still a lot.

[KOKOagainandagain]

sweet I have just discovered that we have the same problem Its bloody Fifa but he has been 'choosing' to buy coins too. His expenditure used to be modest and was covered by his pocket money but he had a friend from his school staying at exeat weekend and between them they decided they had enough money to afford to buy some coins to allow them to buy a time-limited deal or something. This seemed to set a precedent of buying coins rather than waiting and DS1 then went on a spending spree with no thought of how much he was spending and whether he could afford it .

[sweetteamum]

I must add, he uses his own money though

[sweetteamum]

Oh my word. It's so hard for some of our kids to understand how these games work.

We have it set up so we get a voucher and no account details are on there.

As for buying players, that's a whole other issue I've got - DS is obsessed with buying Fifa coins (to buy players) rather than waiting for the games to take their course and 'unlock' whatever's necessary to buy players.

[KOKOagainandagain]

DH set the account up. I think it was necessary for an adult to provide bank account details in order for him to access to the 'live' bit. iTunes is password protected so both DS need my permission to buy anything - and once it is bought even if they delete and then re-install, we have never paid again. We also have a PS3 which again I can control the top-up in the purse that is available for them to spend.

Thanks for the info bowwow top up is the way to go in future. I think I need to speak to DS1 to find out exactly what he bought before I contact Microsoft to ask for a refund but I won't tell him how much money is involved. I am concerned that he may have been 'buying' players for his team without realising that real money was being paid. It would explain why it appears that duplicate downloads were charged for - he might have spent £250 in a matter of minutes to buy his squad

[WintersDayTOWIE]

I would agree with getting vouchers etc and not registering a credit card for the future .

DS got an Xbox for his birthday - to get the "free" one-month trial of XBox Live, I had to register my credit card. But then I immediately deleted all the credit card details shortly before the free one month expired. I'm now going to switch to vouchers/codes (thanks for the headsup about cdkeys Bowwow ).

I do the same for iTunes - he has to physically go to Tescos to get a voucher (normally with soft-touch dad who spends more than I would!)

[Bowwowchikkawowwow]

Contact Microsoft, ds did the same with Apple a few years ago spent £500 in 48hrs on extra lives, they refunded.

You need to remove your card/bank details from the account to prevent future spend. You can just buy top ups, I use a company called cdkeys, you pay via paypal, they email a link with a code on.

Just tell ds you need to remove your bank details so you need the password. You can tell him its to save money if you dont want him to know what he has done, with cdkeys, there is a small discount so for a £15 top up, its about £14.39.