Friendship is Expensive: 6-Year Old Drops 900 Bucks on MLP Game
104 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Ymir;39877088]Why would they even add such a feature to a game meant for kids?
Maybe I'm a bit slow to this, but if you're going to implement something like this into that type of game, at least make the whole spending IRL money part a bit more complex for kids to work out.[/QUOTE]
it is complex enough already. itunes/ios is set up so you can never make a purchase w/o a password unless you set it so that you don't need to use one.
[editline]11th March 2013[/editline]
in summary if the girl was able to make purchases w/o a password it was most likely the mother's fault
[QUOTE=RoadOfGirl;39877590]it is complex enough already. itunes/ios is set up so you can never make a purchase w/o a password unless you set it so that you don't need to use one.
[editline]11th March 2013[/editline]
in summary if the girl was able to make purchases w/o a password it was most likely the mother's fault[/QUOTE]
It definitely wasn't the game's fault either for trying cheat costumers out of their money.
Why is she so bothered considering she looks like she bought it as a very expensive Facebook machine.
the easiest way to fix this would just have the damn app ask for the credit card's security number with each transaction.
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;39877604]It definitely wasn't the game's fault either for trying cheat costumers out of their money.[/QUOTE]
in summation: everyone is at fault
[QUOTE=Zotobom;39877587]"I use a system that is not from Apple. Therefore,everyone who uses an Apple product is an inferior,degenerate,babbling moron. Meanwhile,i'm a hyper-intelligent omnipotent user!"[/QUOTE]
this is my pov im glad someone finally understands me
I'm pretty sure that I saw article like this before in Sensationalist Headlines.
Sister's first phone had an AIM chat client on it that was... odd.
This was before unlimited text was the standard, so we didn't realize at the time how much texting would happen.
Well, the way this chat client worked primarily used the SMS system for notifications and messages. Okay cool, whatevs, except we had a limited number of texts per month, and she had a lot of friends, and it counted 1 text for EVERY ACTION EVER. Friend goes online, 1 text. Offline, 1 text. away, 1 text. back from away, 1 text. every message was a text, and so on. To make things even better, turning off the phone [I]doesn't turn off the client.[/I] Force closing the client, [I]doesn't log you out.[/I] The ONLY WAY to make the notifications stop was to dig through several menus to find "sign out"... which also cost a text to do.
We noticed an extreme error after month 1 and she had several [I]thousand[/I] SMSs logged in a half month span of time, our limit was like, 200, and every one after that cost a nickle. Sister was initially in deep shit, but she maintained that there was NO WAY she could have sent that many texts. Looking at the timestamps, there were tens of hundreds in a handful of hours in the middle of the day, simply not possible, even for my sister.
So, investigation revealed the above details about every action costing a nickle past the limit and only being able to disable it by signing out of the client, even with the phone off.
Dad called... sprint I think it was, asked them about it, and after them dodging a lot around the question he re-stated the question like : "Are you telling me that there is an automatic nickle machine on my daughters phone, generating hundreds of nickles every day for every action happening on that phone, and the only way to turn it off is to manually sign out of the client with the phone on, which ALSO costs a nickle?"
To which they hesitantly responded "yes."
And then dad threatened to sue for fraud, all costs were dropped soon afterwards, and we moved to an unlimited texting plan.
All of this to show that if it can get them money... they'll do it, until enough people get pissed, and then they amend their policy to fix it.
[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;39877107]Fucking ridiculous Apple has to pay up for this. It's not their fault the parents leave their kids unsupervised on this.[/QUOTE]
That's the worst part, seriously. Idiot parents blaming the technology company.
There should really be some protection against this considering how many times this seems to be happening. I have no problem if an adult ends up spending £900 for in-game purchases because then they're just an idiot. But kids don't know any better, and it really only punishes their parents for giving them something to play with.
[editline]11th March 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Within;39877653]That's the worst part, seriously. Idiot parents blaming the technology company.[/QUOTE]
Armchair parenting
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;39877604]It definitely wasn't the game's fault either for trying cheat costumers out of their money.[/QUOTE]
that's not the point lol
[editline]11th March 2013[/editline]
parents just need to be made more aware of how purchasing works in ios apps and need to stop using "remember my password" or w/e
[editline]11th March 2013[/editline]
are you going to blame the microwave company when your child puts a cat in there too?
ok so iOS requires a password to UPDATE an app but in-app purchases require no password at all?
what the fuck
[QUOTE=Yahnich;39877777]i would if the microwave had a sticker that said: "hey kid i'll give you a nickel if you put your cat in me"[/QUOTE]
from the sound of it it's more like a suspicious yet completely optional button next to the start button and the kid just kept pushing it because a prompt asked them if they'd like to push that button to get a surprise
[img]http://i.imgur.com/TMcynOz.png[/img]
for a 6 year old it's simple logic
Yeah it's dumb that iOS allows bypassing the password apparently as an option (by default?), but at least they were kind enough to give the refund. Lots of these stories as of late. I'm curious what on earth could have racked up so much cash in this and the other games though
damn kids and their pony prostitutes.
Don't you have to log-in into your apple account before making a purchase?
[QUOTE]Mum Catherine, 34, said she felt sick and cried “uncontrollably” after getting emails from Apple’s iTunes informing her of the amount owed.[/QUOTE]
No surprise, I got a scam email about a payment when I was a kid around that age.Obviously I didn't realize they're just trying to scam money out of people. I was scared shitless and changed my email address. I was afraid that my parent are going to be in legal trouble because of me and that sort of stuff. It may seem like something minor, but for a kid that age it's something really overwhelming, scary and intimidating.
[QUOTE=buro;39877973]Don't you have to log-in into your apple account before making a purchase?[/QUOTE]
Not for in-app purchases if you have it turned on.
[QUOTE=buro;39877973]Don't you have to log-in into your apple account before making a purchase?[/QUOTE]
Only for full apps. By default inapp purchases don't require a password.
Parents should be fully aware of this stuff, even more so with the amount of times it's hitting the news.
It's not hard to use the parental restrictions that are there for that specific reason. If they didn't know; then what are you doing leaving your kids playing with things you know nothing about?
[QUOTE=Catdaemon;39877146]They do require that you enter your password, but only after a certain amount of time (15 minutes I believe). So if I install an app for my child, I have to enter that password. They then have 15 minutes to run up as much shite as they like until it asks for the password again.[/QUOTE]
IIRC they fixed that after that one lawsuit involving smurf village.
It always asks me for my password when I pretend I'm going to make an in-app purchase.
I think there's a button in that game that just spends 100 bucks, I don't even think it's pass-worded.
So a kid could just go "HEY! This gives me shit!" and then spam it.
You get a bunch of in game money thingies or whatever, but why the fuck would you need a button for 100 fucking dollars of useless shit?
[QUOTE=Katatonic717;39878477]I think there's a button in that game that just spends 100 bucks, I don't even think it's pass-worded.
So a kid could just go "HEY! This gives me shit!" and then spam it.
You get a bunch of in game money thingies or whatever, but why the fuck would you need a button for 100 fucking dollars of useless shit?[/QUOTE]
Because they want to make money?
[QUOTE=JayFeather1337;39877111]I really don't think you can blame the parents for this. It saved their credit card on the Ipad.
And they probably have busy lives, you can't watch your kids 24/7[/QUOTE]
You still need to enter the password every time the credit card is used though.
[QUOTE=proch;39877999]No surprise, I got a scam email about a payment when I was a kid around that age.Obviously I didn't realize they're just trying to scam money out of people. I was scared shitless and changed my email address. I was afraid that my parent are going to be in legal trouble because of me and that sort of stuff. It may seem like something minor, but for a kid that age it's something really overwhelming, scary and intimidating.[/QUOTE]
I know that feeling. I got an email once,in the lines of "win a FREEEEEEEE PS2! just put your postcode and shit here". Then our family suddenly got subscribed to a lot of random newspapers. Fuck,I was scared so much that when I found out I locked myself in my room for a couple of hours
I honestly do not blame the parent for this. The average parent would not think that something as child-friendly as My Little Pony would probably have something like this.
[QUOTE=Tucan Sam;39877516]Well these are apple users we are talking about...[/QUOTE]
because all apple users are complete dumbasses and we wouldn't have any of those on android, whose with me guys??
[editline]11th March 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=meppers;39877898]ok so iOS requires a password to UPDATE an app but in-app purchases require no password at all?
what the fuck[/QUOTE]
Actually from iOS6 onwards updating apps doesn't require a password anymore, buying something now requires 2 checkpoints to go through, the password and the "are you sure", something tells me the kid got through these quite fine or the iPad is running on iOS5
Damn, 900 bucks.
Good thing it got refunded.
with that kind of money you probably could buy a REAL pony.
Maybe an ill one with three legs but still a pony!
i wonder if their target audience was actually the adult males who have jobs and happen to obsess over the show
[QUOTE=Zotobom;39877587]"I use a system that is not from Apple. Therefore,everyone who uses an Apple product is an inferior,degenerate,babbling moron. Meanwhile,i'm a hyper-intelligent omnipotent user!"[/QUOTE]
"Now check my epic theme. Check dat green wallpaper."
[sp]I'm not above making fun of my own operating system.[/sp]
On Topic:
[URL="http://www.cnet.com.au/gameloft-my-little-pony-and-rampant-greed-339342493.htm"]The game forces you to pay to get anywhere anytime soon.[/URL]
GG Gameloft.
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