An eight-year-old boy managed to run up a £980 bill for virtual doughnuts using in-app payments offered as part of The Simpsons: Tapped Out for iPad.
According to an interview in the Daily Mail, Theo Rowland-Fry's parents only realised the transactions had occurred when checking their bank balance. "[My wife] got a statement and saw there were more than 100 purchases on iTunes for between £1.50 and £75, from the middle of January and the beginning of this month," said Nick Rowland-Fry. "We received no emails alerting us to what was happening."
The family has now had the money refunded by Apple -- something the company does on a case-by-case basis -- but the massive bill highlights the problem of easy in-app purchases included in games played by children. "Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more stories such as Theo Rowland-Fry's, where his parents are faced with a huge bill from these types of games -- in this case from purchasing doughnuts in a Simpsons game on their iPad," said Louise Hill, COO and founder of online pocket money website PktMny. "It can be an easy mistake to make if children are unaware of the power of purchasing online. Devices with games linked to spending are increasingly popular but with spending entirely intangible children can be oblivious that clicking on a button means more money added on to a credit card bill."
The problem of minors running up in-app bills recently led to a class action lawsuit settlement in the US which saw Apple agreeing to refund costs incurred by children playing bait apps (free apps which make it easy to rack up large bills on the owners' accounts).
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
