Xbox Bill Refunded After Teen Racked Up $8K In Charges

This kid is lucky that both Microsoft and his dad were cool about him running up a $8,200 bill. I'm not so sure I would've handled that so well.

"I hope we have warned enough people. This is not just a game when it can upset a whole family and endanger our children with making mistakes," Lance Perkins told CBC News in a text message. "I hope there are more safeguards put in place for credit card holders." On Dec. 23, he got a bill for $7,625.88 after his 17-year-old son used his credit card to make in-game purchases for one of the FIFA series of soccer games. He later noticed previous Xbox charges, bringing the total to $8,206.43.

How the hell do you rack up 8k worth of damage on a video game? I couldn't even do that on World of tanks if I tried!

Fairly easily. Games built around micro-transactions on console and mobile do this with ease. Guilty of dropping like 1k last year into Brave Frontier...

I consider his reason why he shouldn't have to pay the bill to be bullshit. "When he explained that his son was a minor, Microsoft said it would look into the charges"

He gave the kid the card to use, therefore he had expected a minor to use the card. Would have pulled that for everything else his son purchased that was expected?

At some point people need to be held accountable for being a fucking idiot.

Exavior said:

I consider his reason why he shouldn't have to pay the bill to be bullshit. "When he explained that his son was a minor, Microsoft said it would look into the charges"

He gave the kid the card to use, therefore he had expected a minor to use the card. Would have pulled that for everything else his son purchased that was expected?

At some point people need to be held accountable for being a fucking idiot.

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Same argument we used to use as kids for music cd clubs, was a lot less money though. Yea it could go either way as the parent consented the purchase by entering the card into the console and allowing purchases to be made from it. On the other side of the coin, $8k in a short time span is way beyond the intended function of the micro transactions. Why didn't his bank step in sooner? Usually they monitor unusual behavior, unless this is normal?

I'm sorry, but a 17 year old knows better.


This must have been on purpose.

I'd make the kid pay it back with every penny from every summer job for years.

Also,

The guy should have known better than associating his card with ANY account that someone other than himself had access to.

This is why we have disposable and gift cards...

This is from our town. I still cannot believe they refunded the guy. He definitely knew what he was doing, 17 or not.

To add to that... the father gave his son a card to purchase items for their store, from retailers and wholesalers. The kid decided his Xbox account was also free game.

Exavior said:

At some point people need to be held accountable for being a fucking idiot.

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Zarathustra[H];1042107268 said:

This is why we have disposable and gift cards...

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Bought my son a $100 gift card for Christmas. He bought $50 worth of in game shit (and a PS4 game), then complained that it went too fast. Yup. Lesson learned. That's how it works.

17 year olds know better. If this kid was that dumb, the dad should never have put his CC on the Xbox.

Zarathustra[H];1042107268 said:

Also,

The guy should have known better than associating his card with ANY account that someone other than himself had access to.

This is why we have disposable and gift cards...

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Exactly. This is why I created my daughter's iTunes account and then immediately changed the payment method to a iTunes card and removed my CC.

Mind you, it is a huge problem when a credit card is often required to create accounts in the first place. That is awful for people who aren't technically savvy.

auntjemima said:

This is from our town. I still cannot believe they refunded the guy. He definitely knew what he was doing, 17 or not.

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They refund these charges because it costs them nothing to do so, and the fees are as high as they are so that the people who only buy one thing end up spending a lot. It's not meant to charge the odd person $8,000, it's meant to charge everyone $5. It's like data overages and roaming charges - the phone company doesn't want to charge you $12,000, it makes them look bad and they'll never collect in full. What they do want is to charge everyone $5 every once in a while.

It literally costs nothing to refund these charges(because the product has no actual cost) and wins them PR points. "Oh see they're not greedy, they'll refund your money if you make a mistake." What possible reason could they have to not refund charges like this?

If you're gonna be stupid enough to give your son a credit card in your name, shouldn't you at least get one with a low limit?

Unless his son has special needs, giving him the brand new "affluenza" defense is incorrect

Like my Dad always said, you are never too old for an ass-whooping.

Another example of someone getting away scot-free for his idiocy. Thus again gaining an unfair advantage over those who actually know better. This happens all the time. Clever one doesn't get into shady investments promising unrealistic gains. Stupid one puts all his money into it, and when it folds, gets bailed out by the government, with the taxes of the clever one. Makes me so furious.

And then he has the audacity to blame the console. Instead of himself for giving a basically unlimited credit card for his son.

Kalabalana said:

Unless his son has special needs, giving him the brand new "affluenza" defense is incorrect

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M76 said:

And then he has the audacity to blame the console. Instead of himself for giving a basically unlimited credit card for his son.

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The kid wasn't retarded. he knew exactly what he was doing and who's money he was spending (not his). He just didn't want to take responsibility for it and placed the blame elsewhere. He's a dumbshit, and his Dad is, too. I'll help my kids, but if something like this happened, I'd be pissed. They'd be paying for it, I wouldn't try and get out of it.

Shit has consequences. Dad fucked up. Kid fucked up. Xbox didn't.

Ur_Mom said:

Bought my son a $100 gift card for Christmas. He bought $50 worth of in game shit (and a PS4 game), then complained that it went too fast. Yup. Lesson learned. That's how it works.

17 year olds know better. If this kid was that dumb, the dad should never have put his CC on the Xbox.

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Apparently the dad was dumber than the kid cause his dumb ass gave his shithead son access to his card. And 8k on FIFA no less.

Dad hands 17 year old kid card with $8K+ limit, what could possibly go wrong ... he is lucky he didn't find his kid with an unreturnable sex robot or super gaming system with 4K monitor

gotta agree with others ... dumb kid ... dumber dad ... and dumbest Microsoft for allowing both to get away with their stupidity and irresponsibility

Zarathustra[H];1042107262 said:

I'm sorry, but a 17 year old knows better.

I'd make the kid pay it back with every penny from every summer job for years.

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As an incentive to work it off as quickly as possible, the Xbox would be disconnected and put away until he earned enough money to pay the bill.

Zarathustra[H];1042107262 said:

I'm sorry, but a 17 year old knows better.


This must have been on purpose.

I'd make the kid pay it back with every penny from every summer job for years.

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good idea in theory but how many people have a spare $8k laying around to pay off the bill to let their kid work it off for a lesson? I'm sure he doesn't want to deal with the interest charges from this, especially if his kid just said "fuck you" and refuse dot work or pay it off you would be screwed over with this payment and interest. Not to mention the fact he would have a useless credit card for months if not years as it got payed off making him look bad to any financial institution when they see he's had a $8000 balance he's been caring for a long time (and yes this is checked for, was something they looked at for my mortgage application).

But ignoring all this the dad is an idiot, cold day in hell before my kids ever get access to my credit card. They will be given bank accounts with debit visa's so they can make online purchases from their own bank account.

I'd like to know how you're allowed to charge $8k worth of crap for a game. Microsoft, Sony, and Google should throw a flag that something is wrong and stop the charges after $100.

I have never attempted to play a mobile based micro transaction game, so I legitimately do not know what kinds of things people are paying for.

What kinds of things did this kid buy in the FIFA game, and how could it ever be worth $8000? You could buy a lifetime pass that gets you every new FIFA game that comes out for the next 25 years and it wouldn't be $8000.

It's his (the father) own fault for not enabling the parental controls to place a security code on purchases. If he wants to let his kid waste money on buying things for a game they already spent money on to buy in the first place, then he needs to set his son up with a non-bank account associated refillable debit card and throw his son's allowance/chore money on it.

DukenukemX said:

I'd like to know how you're allowed to charge $8k worth of crap for a game. Microsoft, Sony, and Google should throw a flag that something is wrong and stop the charges after $100.

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The other day we were discussing Star Citizen at work and the topic of cost came up. Turns out one of the guys there has spent just over $7000 on the game since its Kickstarter began.. he said since 2013, or so. Worst part was he felt this was entirely reasonable.

Takes all kinds to make the world go around.

auntjemima said:

The other day we were discussing Star Citizen at work and the topic of cost came up. Turns out one of the guys there has spent just over $7000 on the game since its Kickstarter began.. he said since 2013, or so. Worst part was he felt this was entirely reasonable.

Takes all kinds to make the world go around.

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Although I wouldn't find spending $7000 on one game either appealing or budget friendly, another adult might find that totally acceptable ... what is acceptable for an adult spending his or her own money and what is acceptable for a non-emancipated minor spending their parent's money are two completely different things

Spewn said:

It literally costs nothing to refund these charges(because the product has no actual cost) and wins them PR points. "Oh see they're not greedy, they'll refund your money if you make a mistake." What possible reason could they have to not refund charges like this?

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But this is the problem: they want it to be postive PR in the way "We care". But it turns into "Well if they got their money back why cant I". This just opens the door for everyone to make that claim.

on topic: Come on a 17 year old? Had he been 7 or 10 then it would be understandable, but 17... Give him the chair. What happened to Darwinism?

Exavior said:

I consider his reason why he shouldn't have to pay the bill to be bullshit. "When he explained that his son was a minor, Microsoft said it would look into the charges"

He gave the kid the card to use, therefore he had expected a minor to use the card. Would have pulled that for everything else his son purchased that was expected?

At some point people need to be held accountable for being a fucking idiot.

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Should we show a little compassion when you mess up this bad or bring down the hammer on your head like you are suggesting?

In other news, I claim my non-existent son who is a minor made $10k worth of charges on XBL and I want a refund.

ManofGod said:

Should we show a little compassion when you mess up this bad or bring down the hammer on your head like you are suggesting?

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Hammer! Messing up would constitute this being a one time charge: that would be reasonable as a mistake. However these are numerous charges to the point of being insane and obviously taking considerable time to accrue, in other words having to navigate the purchase transactions.

This does highlight a much needed change to our laws ... just as the criminal justice system can now consider kids in their mid to late teens to be adults for their trials and punishments we might need to expand that to more aspects of life ... The selection of 18 as the age of emancipation and of technically becoming an adult is strictly arbitrary ... perhaps we should lower that age to 16 or 17 ... there shouldn't be any legal reason to treat a financial crime committed by a 17 year old any differently than one committed by an 18 year old ... in this case one could hope that MS would at least give a lifetime ban to their account and console forcing them to buy a new unit to ever use the online functionality again

krotch said:

In other news, I claim my non-existent son who is a minor made $10k worth of charges on XBL and I want a refund.

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Hah. Wouldn't it be funny if the son is a scapegoat and the dad bought all this FIFA crap.

kbrickley said:

This does highlight a much needed change to our laws ... just as the criminal justice system can now consider kids in their mid to late teens to be adults for their trials and punishments we might need to expand that to more aspects of life ... The selection of 18 as the age of emancipation and of technically becoming an adult is strictly arbitrary ... perhaps we should lower that age to 16 or 17 ... there shouldn't be any legal reason to treat a financial crime committed by a 17 year old any differently than one committed by an 18 year old ... in this case one could hope that MS would at least give a lifetime ban to their account and console forcing them to buy a new unit to ever use the online functionality again

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Hell, Germany let's 16 year olds drink beer and at 18, they can drink hard liquor.

Rob94hawk said:

How the hell do you rack up 8k worth of damage on a video game? I couldn't even do that on World of tanks if I tried!

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Easy. Video game corporations hire psychologists to help them design the game in such a way to exploit your psyche and get you hooked so that you keep spending money. It is no different than a gambling addiction.

Admiral Equinox said:

Fairly easily. Games built around micro-transactions on console and mobile do this with ease. Guilty of dropping like 1k last year into Brave Frontier...

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You admit that publicly?

I'd never spend one dollar on game micro-transactions. The system offends me.

kbrickley said:

This does highlight a much needed change to our laws ... just as the criminal justice system can now consider kids in their mid to late teens to be adults for their trials and punishments we might need to expand that to more aspects of life ... The selection of 18 as the age of emancipation and of technically becoming an adult is strictly arbitrary ... perhaps we should lower that age to 16 or 17 ... there shouldn't be any legal reason to treat a financial crime committed by a 17 year old any differently than one committed by an 18 year old ... in this case one could hope that MS would at least give a lifetime ban to their account and console forcing them to buy a new unit to ever use the online functionality again

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Agreed, because this just hurts other players. MS refunded that money that was otherwise given to another developer. Yes it is MS choice on how to handle it but I do feel that "boo hoo he was 17 and didnt know what he was doing" is not a valid argument, it doesnt seem to hold up with any kind of violent crime so why should it for anything else? You either are able to know what you are doing or are not, the act shouldn't dictate that.

damicatz said:

Easy. Video game corporations hire psychologists to help them design the game in such a way to exploit your psyche and get you hooked so that you keep spending money. It is no different than a gambling addiction.

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A couple of Kansas City Royals players were almost fired over their Clash of Clans addiction: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24762153/royals-world-series-journey-almost-derailed-by-clash-of-clans

Apparently Clash of Clans is doing pretty well, as they keep showing commercials during the 3 or so tv shows I actually watch (Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow)

Snowdog said:

You admit that publicly?

I'd never spend one dollar on game micro-transactions. The system offends me.

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I've spent $5 on a cell phone game or two, but that's enough to get into the meat of the game and see that it is designed to suck up all your time and/or money to get to the upper echelons. I've spent something like $100 on World of Tanks, but I feel I've got my money's worth.

DocSavage said:

A couple of Kansas City Royals players were almost fired over their Clash of Clans addiction: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24762153/royals-world-series-journey-almost-derailed-by-clash-of-clans

Apparently Clash of Clans is doing pretty well, as they keep showing commercials during the 3 or so tv shows I actually watch (Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow)

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They make 1.5 million dollars a day.

That's the insidiousness of "free to pay" apps. People are cheapskates on mobile and won't pay $20 up front for a game but then they will happily spend hundreds of dollars on a "free" game because the games are designed in such a way to get you hooked and subconsciously influence you to spend.

Spewn said:

They refund these charges because it costs them nothing to do so, and the fees are as high as they are so that the people who only buy one thing end up spending a lot. It's not meant to charge the odd person $8,000, it's meant to charge everyone $5. It's like data overages and roaming charges - the phone company doesn't want to charge you $12,000, it makes them look bad and they'll never collect in full. What they do want is to charge everyone $5 every once in a while.

It literally costs nothing to refund these charges(because the product has no actual cost) and wins them PR points. "Oh see they're not greedy, they'll refund your money if you make a mistake." What possible reason could they have to not refund charges like this?

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Games and content have no cost? So everyone who makes the games works for free?

kbrickley said:

Dad hands 17 year old kid card with $8K+ limit, what could possibly go wrong ... he is lucky he didn't find his kid with an unreturnable sex robot or super gaming system with 4K monitor

gotta agree with others ... dumb kid ... dumber dad ... and dumbest Microsoft for allowing both to get away with their stupidity and irresponsibility

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He gave him a card to use for the business, probably had a much higher than $8K limit.

Ragenrok said:

good idea in theory but how many people have a spare $8k laying around to pay off the bill to let their kid work it off for a lesson? I'm sure he doesn't want to deal with the interest charges from this, especially if his kid just said "fuck you" and refuse dot work or pay it off you would be screwed over with this payment and interest. Not to mention the fact he would have a useless credit card for months if not years as it got payed off making him look bad to any financial institution when they see he's had a $8000 balance he's been caring for a long time (and yes this is checked for, was something they looked at for my mortgage application).

But ignoring all this the dad is an idiot, cold day in hell before my kids ever get access to my credit card. They will be given bank accounts with debit visa's so they can make online purchases from their own bank account.

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Given this guy owns a store and his son runs it with him, I could see him paying his son $8K a year at the very least. So just don't pay him till he works off the $8K not that hard in this case. Think a year of no money would teach him a lesson. Yes that can look bad, but since the card was for purchasing stuff for the business I would assume it is probably a company card and not his personal account, in which case it would not hurt the man as much as the business. But even then $8K for a business is nothing in many cases to have on lines of credit. Go buy a few desktops for an office along with a few switches and you can rack up far more than that. For a store, I could see all types of things that you might be purchasing on credit and then turning around and paying off at the end of the month.

ManofGod said:

Should we show a little compassion when you mess up this bad or bring down the hammer on your head like you are suggesting?

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If I buy something I expect to pay for it. I have never purchased an item with a line of credit, signed all needed forms and then after getting said item demanded that the loan be voided and I keep the item. I bought my house, I signed the forms and I make the monthly payments I am not demanding the bank remove my loan and I get to keep the house because I didn't know that I was going to have to pay for the house. Before my current car that I bought with cash, all other cars I have owned were purchased with loans. I never bought a car after the 3 fucking hours of paperwork and then later bitched that I didn't understand that I was going to actually have to pay for the car I thought I was going to get it for free. If you order items online and have them shipped to you, digital or physical you should understand that you are buying an item and not be allowed later to claim I didn't understand that me confirming the purchase meant I was purchasing an item.

Nobody should be able to use the excuse they didn't understand that buy signing a document to purchase a house or car that they were going to have to pay for it. By the same accord, people should not be allowed to click through multiple screens confirming an online purchase and then claim they didn't know they were buying stuff.

You can't accidently purchase anything in a game, you have to manually setup the credit card, you have to select the item, you have to select the payment option and then confirm the purchase.