Parents, you dont want your child to rack up $8000 bill playing on Xbox!
We have all heard unbelievable stories about children raking up huge amounts of bills through in-app purchases by using their parents’ smartphones or tablets to play mobile games, but over here, the story is quite different. Lance Perkins managed to get the shock of his life on December 23 when he found out that his son managed to accumulate a bill of $8,000 while playing on his Xbox console.
His son, a 17 year teenager, was able to rake the bill to such a high amount thanks to a spending frenzy through the in-app purchasing option present in the Xbox video gaming system. According to CBC news, Perkins said that the credit card details used by his son had been designated for emergency purposes only, such as purchasing medical supplies or necessary items from the grocery store. Instead, he told the news that when his son made the in-app purchase of $7,625.88, he thought that it would be for a one-time only deal while playing a FIFA series soccer game. Perkins states the following:
“He’s just as sick as I am, [because] he never believed he was being charged for every transaction, or every time he went onto the game.”
After finding out how much money had been spent on the game, he immediately called his credit card company, which told him that absolutely nothing could be done about the situation until and unless the father charged the son with fraud. Xbox has agreed to look into the matter, but only after they found out that the son was aged 17. So far, Perkins has not updated us on the situation, but it appears that he has not heard a reply from Xbox either.
In the United States, the FTC has measures in place that protect consumers from ridiculous amounts of billing, but unfortunately, since the son and father were living in Canada, the rules are not as strict as they are in the other region. Let us hope that this is a grim reminder to all parents that it is not just smartphones and tablets that can end up giving you a huge bill because such issues have managed to reach out to consoles as well.
