A 13-year-old spent $64,000 of her parents' money on mobile games without them realizing

[midian182]

WTF?! In yet another example of how addictive pay-to-win mobile titles can be, a 13-year-old girl in China spent around $64,000 that was stolen from her mother on app games, wiping out her parents' savings in just four months.

The unnamed child, a secondary school student from Henan, was only caught by her mother after a teacher called to say she thought the girl might be addicted to mobile games after noticing how much time the 13-year-old spent on her phone.

Regional TV channel Elephant News reported that the mother, whose surname is Wang, checked her bank and found it contained just 0.5 yuan, or seven cents.

When confronted by her father, the girl confessed to spending $17,000 on buying games and $29,526 on in-app purchases, an amount worthy of Diablo Immortal. She also spent thousands giving money to at least ten classmates who wanted to buy games themselves. In total, the girl spent around $64,000.

"When they asked me to pay for their games, I paid despite feeling reluctant," the girl said. "If I didn't send it to them, they would bother me all day. If I told the teacher, I was afraid that the teacher would tell my parents and that my parents would be angry."

As we've seen in other cases of kids spending their parents' money on games, the daughter had found her mother's debit card at home and linked it to her phone. She also knew the card's password as the mother had told it to her in case the girl needed money when her parents weren't around.

Honor of Kings is massively popular in China

While the girl said she didn't understand much about money or where it came from, she knew to delete chat records and payment transactions to hide evidence of her spending from her parents.

The mother has tried to get a refund from several payment companies but has yet to receive the full amount back.

Many on social media have little sympathy for the girl, noting that she understood what she was doing, especially in deleting the transaction records. Others blame the parents.

China has long held a dim view of video games, calling them "electronic drugs" a few years ago. It only allows those under 18 to play online games for one hour, between 8 pm and 9 pm local time, on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.

We've seen plenty of cases like these before, though the amount the girl spent is much higher than usual. In 2017, an 11-year-old spent almost £6,000 (around $7,465) on in-app purchases over the course of just two weekends. And in 2020, a dad discovered his daughter, also 11, spent $6,000 on Roblox, claiming she thought it was Monopoly money.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/98980-13-year-old-spent-64000-parents-money-mobile.html

 

[RandomWAN]

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I don't understand the parents thought process in trusting her with access to their finances. I was expecting someone with an absurd line of credit had left the card linked to the kid's phone, not that they gave her access to cash money and their life savings.

 

[Puiu]

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I don't understand the parents thought process in trusting her with access to their finances. I was expecting someone with an absurd line of credit had left the card linked to the kid's phone, not that they gave her access to cash money and their life savings.

Not sure if they actually gave her "access" or she just took the credit card info on her own (not hard to do at all).

Considering the effort she put to not be discovered, I'm assuming that the parents didn't actually give her anything.

 

[Lionvibez]

"While the girl said she didn't understand much about money or where it came from, she knew to delete chat records and payment transactions to hide evidence of her spending from her parents."

At 13 you don't know what money is or where it came from?

Not only is she a bad liar I would disown her.
The parents are equally at fault I would notice $100 bucks missing from my account within a few hours.

 

[Kashim]

Parents of the year right there. This is what modern day parenting looks like. Buy your kids expensive phones and let them do whatever they want. Then when something like this happens act all surprised about it. I hope they learned a hard lesson, but probably not. I'm guessing they won't even take the kid's phone away for more than a week or two as punishment.

 

[TomSEA]

"While the girl said she didn't understand much about money or where it came from, she knew to delete chat records and payment transactions to hide evidence of her spending from her parents."

At 13 you don't know what money is or where it came from?

Not only is she a bad liar I would disown her.
The parents are equally at fault I would notice $100 bucks missing from my account within a few hours.

I was thinking the same thing. Pretty loosey-goosey on monitoring their financial accounts. I check mine a couple of times a day just to make sure nothing bad is going on.

 

[nismo91]

This is not a 3-year-old kid randomly pressing the buttons on the parent's phone. this is a 13 year old kid that had gone to school possibly carrying their parent's device with unlocked access to the parent's banking apps that spends money in the course of 4 months unnoticed.

if someone can be that stupid then there's no stopping them: hey let's not buy a separate phone for my kid and make a new email address, let me give my phone and also my passwords so my kid can spend my money because I don't even check my bank balance anymore. goodness.

 

[Nobina]

When I was 13 I was aware enough to know that money is hard-earned and what it means to spend a lot of someone else's money. This is not something you don't know.

Money these days is just a number on a screen, I imagine that has something to do with how we perceive it. Bet it would be much harder for her to spend her moms' money in its physical form.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Not sure if they actually gave her "access" or she just took the credit card info on her own (not hard to do at all).

Considering the effort she put to not be discovered, I'm assuming that the parents didn't actually give her anything.

You should try reading the article before arguing with someone about what it says.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Lol. You do NOT give your kid the debit card password to your primary account.

Put some petty cash in a drawer for such “kid needs cash” emergencies.
Or get fancy and set up a separate account with the kid's allowance in it.

 

[Puiu]

You should try reading the article before arguing with someone about what it says.

you are right I should have read it more carefully.

"the daughter had found her mother's debit card at home and linked it to her phone"

you don't need a "password" to use a credit/debit card online. and not all websites/applications require verification using the bank app.

 

[p51d007]

You want adopt my child?
Good! Give $64,000.00 to me.

 

[3volv3d]

When I was 13 I was aware enough to know that money is hard-earned and what it means to spend a lot of someone else's money. This is not something you don't know.

Money these days is just a number on a screen, I imagine that has something to do with how we perceive it. Bet it would be much harder for her to spend her moms' money in its physical form.

Money these days is more imaginary than it has ever been. And tha't's the beauty of digital money, you can really do damage, just as they intend us to do.

 

[hahahanoobs]

The mom better not get her money back. This is a learning moment.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I've got zero accounts that are automatically linked to any form of payment and for good reason, because when the wife got the Kindle Fire when they first came out, she linked her bank card to it. She'd let our daughter (who was maybe 5 at the time) play games we'd have on there and leave our daughter unattended. The daughter learned that sometimes in the game you could earn the "in game currency" doing certain tasks, but it was only a small amount and rarely enough to get something she thought she needed in the game. The daughter, not really understanding anything more than that, after pushing buttons, found her way into purchasing $50 of the in game currency. The wife got an email confirming the purchase and realized what happened. She unlinked her CC info from the device after that.

The wife was pissed that it happened, but you live and learn and thankfully it was only $50 and not hundreds or thousands of dollars like some people have had happen to them.

 

[Lionvibez]

I've got zero accounts that are automatically linked to any form of payment and for good reason, because when the wife got the Kindle Fire when they first came out, she linked her bank card to it. She'd let our daughter (who was maybe 5 at the time) play games we'd have on there and leave our daughter unattended. The daughter learned that sometimes in the game you could earn the "in game currency" doing certain tasks, but it was only a small amount and rarely enough to get something she thought she needed in the game. The daughter, not really understanding anything more than that, after pushing buttons, found her way into purchasing $50 of the in game currency. The wife got an email confirming the purchase and realized what happened. She unlinked her CC info from the device after that.

The wife was pissed that it happened, but you live and learn and thankfully it was only $50 and not hundreds or thousands of dollars like some people have had happen to them.

Some people need to learn their lessons the hard way.

Glad that was only a $50 mistake.

 

[wiyosaya]

Surprise, surprise. Give your 13-year-old daughter the passcode for your debit card and then wonder why your bank account was drained.

 

[redgarl]

I checked the article... thought about Diablo Immortal... and read Diablo Immortal...

Blizzard need a massive Class Action against them and refund the money on micro-transactions on ALL accounts related to Diablo Immortal... you can't get away with this.

 

[GoldenGoat]

The parents were irresponsible. The kid was irresponsible. The app store and game companies were irresponsible for taking that kind of money from a kid without verifying the shopper's identity.

 

[redgarl]

Surprise, surprise. Give your 13-year-old daughter the passcode for your debit card and then wonder why your bank account was drained.

Surprise Surprise, Blizzard is using Psychiatrists to design their micro-transactions strategy... all this to capitalize on the problems of the people.

This would have never happened if Blizzard didn't designed Diablo Immortal with a price tag of 50000$ for having a max built. It was purely intentional and they should answer about the consequence of putting some families in those kind of situation because their kid have a problem.

 

[DSirius]

From this article it seems that many of us do not take the 3rd party involved which is very accountable and also should take responsibility. I mean the app devs, which created the game in such a way to exploit any mistake from users and take their money without their knowledge or explicit consent. This is telling a lot about how unsafe and predatory games become nowadays.
So all 3, parents, the child and developers are accountable.
The parents payed for their mistakes. It is necessary to regulate this market and punish bad actors with a hefty fine too.

 

[redgarl]

The parents were irresponsible. The kid was irresponsible. The app store and game companies were irresponsible for taking that kind of money from a kid without verifying the shopper's identity.

It is Diablo Immortal pal... this Blizzard fault entirely for having the audacity of releasing this slot machine sim...

 

[redgarl]

The mom better not get her money back. This is a learning moment.

Yeah, Blizzard need the money for their stockholders way more...

/SARCASM

 

[godrilla]

My 11 year old daughter asks me 100 times before I can buy her a $10 dlc pack even when she was younger at the the start of the pandemic. We were all 13 years old once. Heck I earned my first $20 working in an ice cream parlor at the age of 12. A 13 year old who doesn't know anything about money. Something doesn't add up. I guess if you wait for the education system teaching the youth this would be inevitable. You have to teach your kids yourself.

 

[RandomWAN]

Not sure if they actually gave her "access" or she just took the credit card info on her own (not hard to do at all).

Considering the effort she put to not be discovered, I'm assuming that the parents didn't actually give her anything.

you are right I should have read it more carefully.

"the daughter had found her mother's debit card at home and linked it to her phone"

you don't need a "password" to use a credit/debit card online. and not all websites/applications require verification using the bank app.

"As we've seen in other cases of kids spending their parents' money on games, the daughter had found her mother's debit card at home and linked it to her phone. She also knew the card's password as the mother had told it to her in case the girl needed money when her parents weren't around."

Apparently you do in China. They should have never given her access to the account(s) and should have monitored their money more closely.