[Closed] Apple game charges where do folks stand on this?

Shouldn't have given his kid the password. Was good of Apple to refund the charges though.

As above. Bit of a non-story really. Silly parents. Misleading thread title too, since it's not an Apple game at all (they just provide the infrastructure). Kind of surprised the credit card company didn't query it though, I've had them ring me up after spending far less!

I've never done in app purchases on iDevices, does it not tell you in the passcode window how much you are about to be charged?

Also it pisses me off that Apple will seemingly refund you no problem if you do this, yet you have to fight tooth and nail to get them to fix their own (still under warranty) badly designed hardware which is widely recognised to have a design flaw.

Easily done, but Apple are pretty good with first time offenders.
I would question whether that game was suitable for a 5 yo, but thats another matter entirely.

Safest way to avoid problems is to set up an account for the kids that isn't linked to a credit card and use physical top up cards to fund it. You can also de-activate in-app purchases if your kids don't understand how to 'grind' free-to-play games without spending a fortune. My kids have 10+ games on the go at anyone time and as soon as they hit an energy or time based paywall move onto the next one.

The story is actually quite funny. The older kids telling him you could buy a house for that made me laugh. I can imagine our little boy doing that hence everything is set up to stop it happening.

Not a gamer - but aside from the context of the story.....£70 for an in game add on "bomb". Do sentient adults actually spend this sort of money on gaming or is this the preserve of the pissed at closing time? Bonkers!

World of Tanks is my drug of choice for spending money on freemium games 🙁 I wouldn't spend £70 on a single item but have probably burned through £200 since November, I'm hoping I get bored of it soon...

Really? That seems like a lot! Never played World of Tanks, what does it have over Halo, CoD or any of the other big multiplayer console games?

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I think the developers know full well that no adult in their right mind would spend £70 for a bomb in a game. They know exactly who is likely to do it....
It would be good to see apple get better control of their apps and give the finger to the obvious rip off merchants.

not that I'm defending this type of game (I think they're terrible) but with the in-app purchases, normally the more you spend the better value it is. So for example, if you know that you spend £20 per week then buying a month's worth at £70 makes "sense" (I use that term loosely).

It would be good to see apple get better control of their apps and give the finger to the obvious rip off merchants.

It is slightly better set up by default now, but even so, there is no right place for additional pay content as a key part of games aimed at kids, particularly small kids. They don't know the value of money - there is no way any in game purcase is a meaningful transaction, it is just evil developers exploiting children's lack of knowledge.

Clearly as a parent you should be careful with your password or whatever, but realistically, how many times have the 70 quid items in the smurf's game really been bought with a parent's permission. They know they are making money out of kids getting their parents password and not knowing the value of money, and they are proper scum for doing so.

The rubbish thing is that there isn't anything necessarily wrong with in app purchases, things like buying extra levels have been around for years, from the days of Doom etc. But the exploitative way that phone apps for kids are doing it is inevitably going to lead to some kind of ridiculous legislation, because they are just taking the piss. Or alternatively it may end in a class action suit in the US where it may be deemed that all in app purchases made by kids have to be refunded or similar, at which point developers get buggered.

There's also banking laws that at some point apple and google may fall foul of - by providing what are essentially financial services where in practice it is obvious that the target user is kids without their parents permission or knowledge.

And as for Apple's control and restrictions - it isn't what apps they let you run that is the problem, it is the purposes they let their payment system and the card details they hold to be used for. Whilst google let's pretty much any app on android, I'm sure no one would think it okay if they let their payment system be used for extremely dodgy and deceptive things, hence them being far more careful about that. (not that google are any better in this case, android in app purchase happens too.

Nothing Apple did wrong, they require you to enter a password to download content and the parents gave their child the password.

Restriction settings are also available for those who choose to use them to further limit what can be done.

Nothing Apple did wrong, they require you to enter a password to download content and the parents gave their child the password.

I think the default us (or was) a 15 min window after the password was last used in which further purchases don't need it. So you buy a game, give it to your child and can spend as much as they like without the password in that window.

They know they are making money out of kids getting their parents password and not knowing the value of money, and they are proper scum for doing so.

+1

Young Danny said: “I said to dad can you put the passcode for the game he said no and then I said it was free so he said yes.

Stupid parent shocker.

I love it. Normally you get people raging against Apple for having too much control and setting up too many restrictions. Now you're saying there aren't enough? Whatever happened to personal/parental responsibility?!

You seem to be directing that at people who moan about apple. Which i don't. So your comment doesn't remotely apply to me.
I don't blame apple for this at all, I was just remarking that they [i]could[/i] **** the rip off merchants over should they choose to.

Apple did build an "in-game" purchasing system that has made it far too easy for Developers to delibarely place obscenely priced add-ons into games deliberately aimed at misleading children.

I doubt calling the parents [i]stupid[/i] is going to help, like most parents i'd imagine they're tired and busy, and probably didn't think any innocent looking game on an iPad could rack up 1700 quid in charges. I wasn't aware that was possible myself.

Stupid parent shocker.

Not really. Most people aren't fully aware of the 15min window and they didn't give the child the password, they just entered it once so the game could be downloaded. The rela issue is that they then allowed such huge costs to be racked up in such a short time with no check

Whist some companies like Supercell who make Clash of Clans and Hey Day do state how much income they generate ($1M per day from global sales) it's pretty much impossible to find out who is actually spending money. Just because a lot of games look like they're played by kids doesn't mean that kids are spending the money. I think we know more than most that it's a bit easy to get carried away spending money on your hobby!

yet you have to fight tooth and nail to get them to fix their own (still under warranty) badly designed hardware which is widely recognised to have a design flaw.

I like the way people are quick to blame the parents.

I have been an Apple user for many years with Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods etc and as I was never one to download games never new about these 'in App' purchases. Sure enough my youngest runs up a bill for £170 and I only find out when I get the email from iTunes Store the following morning.

What was most alarming on this particular game is that I managed to spend more money without entering my password. This was almost 12 hours after my son had made the purchases. So this App was allowing purchases without a password!

I had to apologise to my 5 year son as I had accused him of entering the password when it was not even required.

Rightly so Apple actually refunded the full amount before it even left my bank account.

Now that is good service but it does show that these Apps are not always as they seem.