Wednesday, May 18, 2016

refunds father $6000 for App Store purchases made by 8-yr-old daughter


I don’t have kids yet. But when I do, I’m going to make sure that I take all of the necessary steps to prevent them from making purchases in the App Store. There arevarious ways to do this, and for me it’s just common sense—I wouldn’t lve them with rl money.But apparently, it’s not such a cut-and-dry matter for some folks. Take this story by UK’s Mirror publiion, which went viral this weekend, about an 8-yr-old girl racking up a staggering $6000 App Store bill on her father’s iPad by making several in-app purchases…The Mirrorreports:“An eight-yr-old girl ran up a massive £4,000 bill by playing free games on her dad’s iPad.Lee Nle said he may have to sell his car and two motorbikes after daughter Lily blew a small fortune in ’s iTunes App Store.The youngster spent more than £2,000 in six days paying for in-game upgrades and bonus content through 74 transactions.Horrified Lee found out when the bank froze his account and banned him from withdrawing cash.He said the schooirl was unaware she was being charged “rl money”.Lee, 43, fumed: “Lily is only eight and hasn’t grasped the concept of money.”Lee, an aerospace engineer fromSomerset, U.K., says that his daughter had admitted that she had seenhim enter his into his iPad when downloading things from the App Store, and she used it to buy hundreds of IAPs from games like Campus Life and My Horse., of course, sent Lee dozens of e-mail receipts confirming Lily’s purchases, but he admits he didn’t notice them until it was too late. He called to try and get them to erase the charges, explaining that she was only 8-yrs-old, but they refused to refund his money.But for rsons that are still unclr, the Cupertino company has since decided to reverse its course. “ called me to say they will be refunding the money I have lost,” he told the outlet, “and apologized for closing my case so rly.” The change of hrt isn’t surprising. has taken a lot of ht over the yrs for its ‘in-app purchasing’ mechanism. The company has not onlyhad to refunda parents for unauthorized purchases, but it’s also spent an estimated $100 million on a recentclass-action lawsuit settlementover IAPs. Yikes.

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