A Father forced to sell his car after his 7-year old makes in-game purchases amounting to 1.33lakhs
July 1, 2021 Ahmedabad – Playing games on an iPhone became too expensive for a doctor that he had to pay a bill of 1.3k pounds. The doctor’s 7-year old son made several in-app purchases on an iPhone game that amounted to 1.3k pounds. The doctor had to sell his family car to cover the bill.
This case is from North Wales, United Kingdom (UK), where 7-year old Ashaz played a free version of DreamWorks monster game, Dragons: Rise of Berke on an iPhone for close to 1 hour and was too engrossed to notice that he had purchased everything from the game, all of which was monetary. His father was shocked to learn about the incident when he received a bill of 1.3k pounds.
Father Muhammad Mutaza was clueless about his son’s doing till the very end. The 41-year old Endocrinologist consultant was surprised to know that the free version of the game allows unlimited purchases to young players.
“Since the game is meant for children aged 4 and above, I am shocked to see how a young child can be allowed to spend such a huge amount,” Muhammad told reporters.
At first, Muhammad thought he had been deceived since he read his emails only to find “too many” transactions. As he filed a complaint at the Apple headquarters, the company returned him around 1,289.70 pounds which were still too meagre to cover the entire cost.
Muhammad had to ultimately sell his Toyota Aygo car to fulfil the remaining bill. He is currently planning on filing charges in court for the same.
He further said that his credit card was completely exhausted after his child’s purchases. He further asserted that children’s free games should refrain from providing any monetary and transaction-related permissions.
Although such transactions are password protected through iTunes, Muhammad said that his son might have seen and remembered the password from before. The very thought of a mere 7-year old breaking through passwords and systems to make a purchase only indicates problems in the very system of operation.
