Boy, 11, racks up £1,000 bill on mother's debit card playing Xbox online - Polidicks

[quote=Dailymail]A desperate mother has condemned Microsoft after her 11-year-old son racked up a £1,000 debt on her debit card - through his Xbox. Brendan Jordan racked up a bill of £1,082.52 on his Xbox without realising all the purchases were being charged to his mum Dawn Matthews' card. The schoolboy made the payments to buy accessories and new games on his console after it saved the details of a previously registered card. [img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/02/07/article-0-0D12BB8B000005DC-205_468x365.jpg[/img] Single mum-of-two Dawn, 37, from Strood, Kent, has now complained to Microsoft but claims the computer giant is ignoring her. She said: 'When I put my card details in 18 months ago I thought it was just for his membership to play online with his friends. 'I work two jobs just to look after my family and pay the bills so I cannot afford all these extortionate charges. 'A thousand pounds isn't that much to people like Bill Gates, but for a single mum it is a lot of money that I don't have. 'The bank and Microsoft are blaming each other and no one is helping me. It has taken me ages to permanently get rid of my card details from the website. 'It was only when I made a complaint that they took all my details off.' Dawn, who works as a sales executive and part-time singer, lives with Brendan and her 13-year-old daughter Abigail. She entered her debit card details into the family Xbox to pay for Brendan's subscription to his favourite game. However, Brendan repeatedly clicked on additions and extensions - racking up a £1082.52 debt to her account over six months. Microsoft say they offer parental control accounts so parents like Dawn can monitor what their children are spending. But Dawn wants her experience to be a lesson to other parents and blames Microsoft for making it 'too easy' for her son to spend the money. She said: 'Brendan is 11 and knows his times tables but it was only when I explained to him that he realised how much money he had spent. 'When I showed him he burst into tears. He unplugged the Xbox and said he didn't want it anymore. 'I haven't punished him because he feels bad enough and I know he won't do it again. 'It is ridiculous to allow someone of his age to make payments without any checks being done. 'When he is in gaming mode he can't be thinking about the money. You can't put all that responsibility on a young boy. 'It is impossible to monitor everything your children do. These companies should take some responsibility. They take advantage of vulnerable people.' A spokesman for Microsoft claimed that a parental control setting would have prevented Brendan from spending Dawn's money. He said: 'With over 30M Xbox LIVE members across the world customer complaints of this nature are extremely rare. 'Microsoft's goal is to provide parents and caregivers with tools and resources to manage their children's gaming and entertainment experiences so that they can play in ways that are safer, healthy and more balanced. 'To accomplish this, we've built-in parental controls in every Xbox 360, work closely with retailers and recently launched the Play Smart, Play Safe website as an online resource for families. 'It should also be noted that LIVE accounts registered for children's use have online activity automatically defaulted to off, these can be enabled by the parent should they wish in the Family Settings section.'[/quote] [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354490/Boy-11-racks-1-000-mothers-debit-card-playing-XBox-online.html]Source[/url] sorry if it's a repost, i searched and found nothing

[quote]'Brendan is 11 and knows his times tables but it was only when I explained to him that he realised how much money he had spent. 'When I showed him he burst into tears. He unplugged the Xbox and said he didn't want it anymore.[/quote] Parents need to look into this shit before they let their kids have their goddamn credit cards [quote]'It is ridiculous to allow someone of his age to make payments without any checks being done.'[/quote] Because it's Microsoft's fault that your kid has an adult account with a credit card tied to it

im crying. we are gonna be poor. oh fuck oh fuck i need to email garry and demand a refund

This almost sounds like a certain forum member..

I don't need to make a pun. This right here is all the joke I need. [img]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/521/ogoda.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=AlienCreature;27932474]fuck oh fuck were gonna be poor[/QUOTE] But they already are [editline]8th February 2011[/editline] the mom looks like a pornstar/ whore

[QUOTE=ineedateam1;27932488]But they already are[/QUOTE] Oh well. They will get even poorer.

That kid needs to get a haircut Edit: Or at least straighten it out

[quote] 'I haven't punished him because he feels bad enough and I know he won't do it again. 'It is ridiculous to allow someone of his age to make payments without any checks being done. 'When he is in gaming mode he can't be thinking about the money. You can't put all that responsibility on a young boy. 'It is impossible to monitor everything your children do. These companies should take some responsibility. They take advantage of vulnerable people.'[/quote] Oh shut the fuck up.

Bullshit he didn't know what he was doing, I bet he did what all kids do and experimented, but he just didn't want to get in trouble, so he pretended it was an accident.

His house looks way too nice to be in Strood. I live about 2 miles from there and its more of a shithole than my town. Then again its probably shit outside his house.

the kids face i cant think of a joke ahahah hohohhohoh hogodod

So what have we learned from this? Don't give your 11 year old child a adult account and a credit cart. I knew this already.

All that money going to waste for avatar stuff. He could've bought Railworks with that money instead.

One thousand pound over XBL? What exactly did he buy? Every single game on XBLA?

[quote]A spokesman for Microsoft claimed that a parental control setting would have prevented Brendan from spending Dawn's money.[/quote] :golfclap:

[QUOTE=B!N4RY;27932668]One thousand pound over XBL? What exactly did he buy? Every single game on XBLA?[/QUOTE] The new call of duty black ops map pack!

[QUOTE=ColdFusion;27932653]So what have we learned from this? Don't give your 11 year old child a adult account and a credit cart. I knew this already.[/QUOTE] I have an adult acc, and I don't abuse the credit card. I listen to my parents :colbert:, unlike this kid

"Hey son, I'll just put my card details into this machine you're always on, not check what can be done with it and not bother checking my finances or wonder how he got all this stuff." Although I agree it's a little too easy to buy stuff like this, you don't just attach your credit card details to something a young child has access to and then be surprised when he takes advantage of it. Grade A dumbass.

[QUOTE=B!N4RY;27932668]One thousand pound over XBL? What exactly did he buy? Every single game on XBLA?[/QUOTE] what I thought, you must buy p ridiculous things to reach 1000£

[QUOTE=ColdFusion;27932653]So what have we learned from this? Don't give your 11 year old child a adult account and a credit cart. I knew this already.[/QUOTE] you can give it to me since i know that money doesnt grow on trees. i still hate how my parents could buy me expensive clothing but not a cheap game :argh:

[QUOTE=Clover;27932487]I don't need to make a pun. This right here is all the joke I need. [img_thumb]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/521/ogoda.jpg[/img_thumb][/QUOTE] [img]http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/12/giantreggieface.jpg[/img] Son!?

[QUOTE=The Spie;27932725]I have an adult acc, and I don't abuse the credit card. I listen to my parents :colbert:, unlike this kid[/QUOTE] You're 11?

Classic case of stupid parent who doesn't want to take responsibility for her own fuck-ups

This reminds me of that guy whose son bought a shitton of stuff on the steam store months before the Mann Co store and then the Mann Co store gets blamed for it. How oblivious do you have to be to not notice money falling out of your account seemingly out of nowhere? I'm sure you'd notice it on your bank statement. :colbert:

Always blame the corporation when you don't know better.

[quote]Boy, 11, racks up £1,000... [/quote] from the front page. Expected something like "for his mom's heart operation" or "for his school" or "by doing great stuff" but nooo

Or to make it look like you're less stupid, which is this case.

I still remember these articles from old newspapers about kid saving someone's life or knocking a thief out or getting enough of money to pay his friend's granddad's bills now the only one thing kids can do to get into the newspapers is to do something incredibly stupid

Wow look at the tits on that