It's perhaps the nightmare of many parents. Waking up to see a notification that thousands have somehow been deducted from the bank account. Thoughts might turn to scammers, even to some errant purchase made late at night, only to realise that it was someone in your own household who managed to spend so much in so little time. But this is what happened to one mum from Denbighshire, Wales, in the United Kingdom as her daughter racked up spending on the popular games site Roblox.
Georgina Munday's ten-year-old daughter managed to spend more than £2,500 (about $3,095) in Roblox before Munday realised (via BBC). When she tried to get refunded she was initially refused before her case was taken up by a radio channel who then helped her get the money back. Munday has warned other parents to be "vigilant" of something similar happening in their own household.
Munday's daughter had been off school after struggling in education and took to playing on the family's iPad for longer than usual. The 10-year-old then changed the password on the tablet without her mum realising and proceeded to rack up a bill of more than £2,500. However, it wasn't in one single swoop as most of the transactions were around £20 (around $24.75).
Munday had thought she'd been hacked before she eventually realised her daughter had changed the password to allow payments. "We'd just seen hundreds of transactions, these payment confirmations, so then the panic set in - oh my gosh, whose card is this on?" Munday told the BBC.
Munday then spent a week contacting Apple and her bank, Tesco Bank, but said she had a "horrendous time" trying to get a refund as both refused. Munday, who is a nurse, then got in touch with BBC Radio 4's You and Yours, a consumer programme, for help. This turned out to do the trick as within 24 hours Tesco Bank got back in touch with Munday to say it would refund her the full amount. "I cried - it was just a relief, a weight off my shoulders," she said to the BBC.
Apple made it clear that accounts on iPads and iPhones can be set up so parents can be alerted before a child makes a purchase and that parents shouldn't disclose passwords or enable FaceID or TouchID for their children. There is also the 'Ask to Buy' function which requires approval before allowing purchases to go through. In addition, Screen Time can be turned on as that allows parents to also stop in-app purchases.
For the parents reading this, and who may not know, Roblox is a platform that allows users to create their own games but which also offers in-app purchases such as clothes and accessories for users' avatars along with some pay-to-play games.