MrGuvernment
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And yet another case of blame someone else for YOUR bad parenting.
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11 Year Old Racks Up $1,750 Xbox Live Bill
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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MrGuvernment
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Also, looking at that couch, leather? or pleather.. what she is wearing, by no means does it look like she is some struggling single mom.
I dunno. Leather looks old and worn, so probably secondhand. I see a cheap DVD player, not a Blu-ray player. I also see what appears to be an ATSC tuner attached to a smallish TV and not a cable box. So they're definitely not rolling in dough.
![Zarathustra[H]](https://cdn.hardforum.com/data/avatars/m/9/9298.jpg?1707758471){kind=avatar}
Zarathustra[H]
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How old is your son?
I wouldn't go as far as calling you a dick, but while what you are saying sounds right, I think its quite another thing in practice.
Granted, I am pretty new to this parenting thing, (I am marrying into a family where I will be getting two pre-teen/teen stepsons, going directly from full on bachelor into the fire), but I feel maybe you are in a position where you have the luxury to spend more time with your children than most.
My Fiancee and I made the decision to move into the best suburb of Boston we could afford in order to make sure the boys had access to the best possible school. For this we are paying a bloody fortune for what amounts to a shoebox, where nothing seems to fit and we are continually bumping into each other.
In order to afford this, we (both professionals, her a project manager at a large pharmaceutical firm, me a QA Engineer at a Medical Device manufacturing company) absolutely need to work full time jobs, and since we are professionals unpaid overtime is not just the norm, but the lack of it could lead to not being considered dedicated to your job, and eventually being without one.
Many days I leave the house at 6am and I don't return until 8PM. My Fiance has a slightly more forgiving schedule than that, but she works longish hours too.
There is no possible way we can look over the kids shoulders every time they are on the console/computer/etc. They come home every day on the school bus to an empty house where they have to supervise themselves until one of us gets home and starts working on dinner.
Yes, we ask questions, yes we look at the screen of the consoles when we see them play, and yes, we punish them if they do things we disapprove of, but we simply can not be there all the time to see everything they do. It just isn't possible. Even in your unusual circumstances this is not always possible. Now picture being a single mom working multiple jobs in order to make ends meet...
Quite frankly, even if we did live in a cheaper neighborhood I don't think it would be cheap enough for one of us to stay at home, and work-from-home type jobs are extremely rare. That, and it would have the unacceptable consequences of having them go to a shitty school.
I don't pretend to know the particulars of your life, but I imagine living in Alaska (correct?) with relatively cheap real estate and working for a remote website affords you and your wife a quite flexible schedule and a lot of time from home which gives you a luxury to spend more time with your children than the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Yes, this is the golden standard of parenting, but for most this is just a pipe dream. I would keep this in mind before being too critical of others.
Add to that that a gaming console essentially is a children's toy, and as such it should not have any features on it that can get them in trouble. Children should not have to be supervised on it anymore than they should have to be with a matchbox car. Once they are old enough to know not to stick it in their mouthes, they should be able to play with it with only minimal supervision. Any other outcome is a failing on the part of the manufacturer.
HardOCP News
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Zarathustra[H];1036824700 said:
I agree with what you are saying and I think we are on the same page for the most part.
I've been married for over 22 years, my son is 16 (in three days) and daughter is 21.
Each person's parenting style is going to be different but, for the most part, I think all responsible parents think the same. They provide for their child the best they can, look out for their kids and take an active roll in their lives. Those three alone things will prevent these kinds of situations from happening (most of the time).
The moral of the story here is, if a person can't check up on their kid, can't use parental controls, can't be bothered to check her own account balance for 6 months, etc. etc. etc. shit like this will happen...every....single....time...and then internet nerds like me are going to laugh at them when they claim it was the fault of <insert corporation>.
There is no way I would've played the "victim" card like this woman when it was obviously preventable and totally my fault.
BTW: I'm not sure about the cheap real estate thing (or why it matters) but there is nothing cheap in Alaska. We pay more for everything in Alaska than any other state in the union aside from maybe Hawaii.
A lot of you people are out of it, you think working people who have a life to deal with understand the new technologies, including how Microsoft likes to make it "easier" to charge your card!? They don't, in fact lots of them are completely clueless. Lots of the people I deal with day to day don't understand any meaningful computer terminology, even now, and while you people think these stories are retarded and the parent should have to deal with it blah blah blah, these stories are the only way MS, Sony, and Nintendo will change how they charge customers.
If you don't understand it at all, you shouldn't give your 11 year old unfettered and unsupervised access to it along with your credit card.
LeninGHOLA
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BTW: I'm not sure about the cheap real estate thing (or why it matters) but there is nothing cheap in Alaska. We pay more for everything in Alaska than any other state in the union aside from maybe Hawaii.
Luckily, you also receive the most federal aid per capita.
BTW: I'm not sure about the cheap real estate thing (or why it matters) but there is nothing cheap in Alaska. We pay more for everything in Alaska than any other state in the union aside from maybe Hawaii.
I thought you moved to Vegas?
HardOCP News
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We did.
We are renting out our home in Anchorage while we taking care of a sick relative (on his second kidney transplant and now has heart problems) and an elderly mother-in-law.
I have two households going at once, I'm here 12 hours a day....and my kid didn't rack up $1,750 on Xbox Live
Its easy, very easy to miss things on your statement unless you are looking for them. My brother had around $300(over a year) in charges he didn't realize until I saw him receive a letter for some type of credit protection agency(then he started to look through all his records). These things happen and you don't realize you were automatically signed up when checking out(or they tricked you into hitting the wrong button), he immediately went to his bank and made them reverse those charges. Microsoft understands parents are going to forget to setup parental controls which lets kids who mostly don't understand money spend it.
I see a lot of victim blame going on here since they think it can't happen to them, obviously this idiot is the only one its happened too...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming
While what is described in the wikipedia section is more severe I see the same thing going on here, blame the victim.
You not reading your bill is YOUR fault and YOURS alone, I don't care how easy or hard it is to read it (in this case, it's not hard to miss if you've been keeping up with the thread), but if you can't manage your own bills then perhaps you should discontinue the service and/or credit card.
HardOCP News
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True, we just disagree who the "victim" here is.
This was already addressed in the thread a few times but...if you miss 50x charges in ALL CAPS like this
02/01 MICROSOFT *XBOX LIVE BILL.XBOX.COM WA $19.99
and the E-MAIL Microsoft sends you to confirm the purchase...every...single...time.
If you aren't an XBL subscriber, you probably didn't know that, but that lady sure the hell did.
Zarathustra[H]
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I agree with what you are saying and I think we are on the same page for the most part.
I Am starting to feel this is the case as well!
This I can agree with. In a situation like this I think I would be pissed at how easily it could happen, but in the end I would take responsibility for it myself, and make one hell of a lesson out of it.
It sort of reminds me of the time we got the $7000 cellphone bill from Verizon. This one was totally Verizon's fault though. The guy in the store guaranteed us he was setting up the phone on the family plan with unlimited texting, until we found that he actually didn't when we got our copy of the final contract. It's amazing how quickly teenagers can text up a storm. We could not prove that the sales rep said he was putting an unlimited texting plan on the phone - however - so Verizon was relentless and would not budge on their billing. We eventually negotiated them down to half the bill. I'm still livid over this one, and refuse to be a Verizon wireless customer ever again.
Fair enough. I made an uninformed guess. My bad. Do you guys have to pay over $400k for 1,100 sq foot condo's (half a house, two family home) just in order to get decent schools though?
I did not know "LemonChiffon" was an official HTML color
I was giving an example, but its nice to see someone think the victims at fault...
Sickb0y
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Makaveli@BETA
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That's what i'm saying.
I have high standards when it comes to women, that mom looks like a hooker I wouldn't pay to touch.
Look, saying you can't remove or edit the card just isn't correct. You have the choice to remove the card completely.
Parental controls stop EVERY purchase by a minor child.
There are 50 different ways to pay for your XBL account and items
This was just a major FAIL on the parents part, simple as that. I'm sorry she didn't know how to work parental controls. I'm sorry she didn't know how to remove her card or how to check her own bank account, etc. etc. etc. but you can remove / edit your card whenever you want and PARENTAL CONTROLS will avoid all of this in the first place.
I am aware of that button. Have you actually tried clicking it? I have, you get a nice message saying that you can't remove that card because it is "in use" or some other bullshit like that.
Man, that is one weird looking, devious 11 year old.
I didn't check the entire thread to see if anyone mentioned this but didn't see it. Did anyone else mention they are trying to say how innocent he is from this pic and he has a picture of what appears to be a pornstar as the background of his live screen?
Sickb0y
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Makaveli@BETA
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That's a picture of his mom.
bigpimpatl
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LOL!!!
Sickb0y
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doubt it chick on the tv is actually decent looking. Kids mom on the other hand completely tonic crusader
were you in the middle of a transaction when you tried to remove it?
the only victim I see is the mother being a victim of frivolouslawsuitus. It's a not so rare disease inflicted by people who refuses to accept responsibility for their own or their children's actions.
Nope. That button is there so that when you add a second payment option, you can remove one. The error is something along the lines of "This is the primary payment method for your account, it cannot be removed".
It's newsworthy because it calls for Darwin, and he does not answer!
Forgot to mention,... as some one else brought up. The article says, it's over the time of 6 months. Even if she does not know how to use parental control, which she should if she were going to give it to her child, she should still be checking her credit card information, atleast by the first month if not more, and see charges foreign to her.
If she did and she ignored it, then she needs to switch to pure cash, cuz there is too much fail involved.
If she did and she ignored it, then she needs to switch to pure cash, cuz there is too much fail involved.
Man, that is one weird looking, devious 11 year old.
ROFLMAO!
No f&@#cking way that is the picture! Are you joking?
He is 11, right? Look at his wallpaper on his xbox! Some whore hahaha.
And by the way his mom looks, I am definitely guessing New Jersey? If not, NYC.
Well good thing people can't download porn directly off the xbox 360, she would have a $10,000+ bill by the looks of that kid and especially his xbox wallpaper
That is defininitly, without a doubt, one of the kids that screams and yells into his gaming headset. And look, he has the brand new slim black xbox and not the older white one so he obviously didn't have it more than one year.
That is defininitly, without a doubt, one of the kids that screams and yells into his gaming headset. And look, he has the brand new slim black xbox and not the older white one so he obviously didn't have it more than one year.
What it probably comes down to is that they were probably hundreds of $5 dollar and $10 charges and really didn't track how often she was getting these "innocent" charges then 6 months later went back and was all WTF when she realized that that those "innocent" charges had been so much over that period of time.
I don't know how anyone could blame Microsoft for that.
Well good thing people can't download porn directly off the xbox 360, she would have a $10,000+ bill by the looks of that kid and especially his xbox wallpaper
That is defininitly, without a doubt, one of the kids that screams and yells into his gaming headset. And look, he has the brand new slim black xbox and not the older white one so he obviously didn't have it more than one year.
Nah see the bump at the top. Thats a 120GB elite. Could be up to three years old.
You obviously didn't read the article. They're from Britain. You fail at the internet.
and I can verify this as the card on my account was used to re-up my live account and they told me I could only remove it by deleting my live account. total BS. only after transferring me to another person who tried to convince me not to turn off automatic renewals was I able to do so, but i was still unable to remove the card from the account. I've got an old amex gift card with 0 dollars on it, maybe ill put that in. They can have fun with that.