-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Xbox bill refunded after teen racks up $8K in charges
- Thread starter King_Richard
- Start date
Petrae
Member
17 is a weird age. Just under the adult responsibility threshold, when you can seemingly get away with quite a bit... but really old enough to know what is going on.
If he was my son, I wouldn't wring his neck, but every video game he had in his possession would be mine and he'd be grounded until he was old enough to move out-- even if Microsoft refunded me in this situation.
If he wanted his video games back, he could buy them back from me.
Eventually these types of stories are going to reach critical mass and attract regulatory oversight. It's asinine that it's even possible to spend this much money on something with absolutely no value, and just as asinine that there aren't more controls in place to cap or curb the potential for abuse. At the very least there should be a cap on how much can be spent on this nonsense without opting in for the "no lube" package and confirming one's identity and age.
I can't spend $2.00 on a lottery ticket with a credit card here, and for that matter it's illegal in most if not all states to sell said lottery ticket to a minor. But a minor spends $8,000 on something which in practice bears remarkable similarity to a scratch-off ticket, without even the utterly minuscule potential to be worth anything at all that a scratch-off ticket carries, and people argue that the burden of any financial hardship that occurs as a result should be born by the family?
Personally if given the choice between rewarding ignorance (on the part of the parents), or unethical behavior, I would prefer to reward ignorance. We don't need to incentivize unethical behavior, there is a surplus of it already. Then again, I also kind of hope the family has a crawlspace under the stairs that they can lock this kid in at night until he is ready to move out.
I can't spend $2.00 on a lottery ticket with a credit card here, and for that matter it's illegal in most if not all states to sell said lottery ticket to a minor. But a minor spends $8,000 on something which in practice bears remarkable similarity to a scratch-off ticket, without even the utterly minuscule potential to be worth anything at all that a scratch-off ticket carries, and people argue that the burden of any financial hardship that occurs as a result should be born by the family?
Personally if given the choice between rewarding ignorance (on the part of the parents), or unethical behavior, I would prefer to reward ignorance. We don't need to incentivize unethical behavior, there is a surplus of it already. Then again, I also kind of hope the family has a crawlspace under the stairs that they can lock this kid in at night until he is ready to move out.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
Thank god gaf ain't judges. Hilarious how ruthless some people here are.
everthustodeadbeats
Member
That father should get a humanitarian award for not laying a hand on his imbecile son. If it were me at 17, ugh, don't want to imagine.
8k in charges? Awful!
8k in charges? Awful!
crazygambit
Member
At the very least a cap on what can be purchased in a specific time period (say $100 every 24 hours). That needs to happen yesterday.
Since unlike physical goods, getting refunds on virtual items is impossible (or it depends on the "kindness" of the company in question), there needs to be a way to limit the damage so to speak.
The end game will probably be to ban a lot of the FTP style slot reward systems as they're no different from online gambling and are freely available to minors no less. I honestly can't see a future where this stuff is allowed to continue with no oversight forever. The lengths some of these games go to make you an addict is truly terrifying. The science behind it is pretty wild.
Pathfinder
Member
...
Oh, please. That is not the point, and you know it.
I'm not being pulled into a Pathfinder discussion, sorry.
This is simply not true. You do not need cards to play MP in FIFA. In fact, in standard MP you don't even use the cards. FUT is a completely separate mode.
The Dad had the option of claiming fraud. He didn't want to do so.
Except there are a whole bunch of safeguards in place. This father bypassed them all for his kid.
By default a child account isn't going to make purchases w/o permission from the parent.
By default a 17-year-old is not eligible for a credit card.
You can setup any Xbox account to require verification before each purchase.
It's not. FUT is just a digital take on CCGs like Magic and Pokemon.
mordecaii83
Member
It was nice of Microsoft to issue a refund and all, but I do feel like letting the father and son get off with no consequences is a bad idea. I hope the father at least finds a way to discipline/educate his son about the consequences of his actions.
dragonyeuw
Member
Ç
Holding them responsible for the charges a 17 year old placed on a credit card isn't punishment. It also sets a precedent. If this leads to some kind of change as suggested throughout the thread to avoid such an occurance down the line, great. But MS is under no obligation to do this, nor should they be expected to.
Holding them responsible for the charges a 17 year old placed on a credit card isn't punishment. It also sets a precedent. If this leads to some kind of change as suggested throughout the thread to avoid such an occurance down the line, great. But MS is under no obligation to do this, nor should they be expected to.
joecanada
Member
the kids 17, I can remember stealing chocolate bars from a convenience store at 12 and knowing it was wrong.... and maybe stealing money from my mom like once when I was 13, and felt horrible.
this kid is well old enough to know that what he did was fully stealing. and he didn't learn anything here.
Doug Heffernan
Member
I'm a firm believer in punishing your kids the way they would be punished in real life. When someone doesn't pay their taxes the government doesn't give them a spanking, they garnish your wages. Punish this kid by taking the 8K out of his savings account, if he doesn't have enough, make him work for it or sell some of his shit. Prepare him for the real world, it will make him a better person.
Pathfinder
Member
Sorry if my argument was a little too real for you.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Okay so I rephrase to EA builds particular modes in all of their games now around generating money through the use of gambling mechanics. Recall that the question I was answering was "how is it possible to spend this much in FIFA", not "is it possible to not spend this much in FIFA"
NinjaCoachZ
Member
Is setting a precedent a bad thing? I mean if you can wrack up thousands upon thousands of dollars in microtransactions, creating bad publicity for them as a practice that now publishers are forced to address, that sounds like a pretty important thing for the game industry considering how despised they are as a practice overall.
And depending on your life situation, being completely screwed out of $8000 because of a dumb moment of judgement can be seriously devastating. MS realizing that this isn't the kind of thing the dad should have to just suck up and live with is just basic empathy.
I also doubt that the kid is going to get off scot-free since he's the one who actually blew the money. Dad will have a lot to say to him.
WaterAstro
Member
I guess it's time to get FIFA for Xbox and accidently buy millions of dollars worth of MTX and get Microsoft to refund it.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
I'm not saying that. But you people don't understand that a 8000$ can be life ruining money leading to perpetual debt if worst comes to worst.
If you guys believe that that's how it should be feel free to do so.
I will strongly disagree cause empathy.
Sure 17 is old enough for most but some aren't even ready when they're in their 20, people are different. 18 is the arbitrary cut off so why not abide by it.
I'm fairly sure that, the guy ain't gaming anymore until he is independent, judging by the prior article.
I call BS on the dad not knowing the kid was lieing about that honestly. He'd have to be a really naive dad to actually believe his kid's lie. Honestly, I suspect dad was going along with it so he could preset a sympathetic face to get them to refund the money.
On the other hand, I'm not upset about them refunding the money nor do I really blame the dad and son for trying to look more sympathetic when they know people have this tendency to go, "You chose to do that, deal with it." (people tend to like to think if some one is foolish they should have to eat all the costs regardless of if some one else was trying to take advantage of people being foolish which F2P certainly does that). I bet son was truly surprised at least at how much money he racked up and I really doubt they were trying to just get free game goods so I don't think either was trying to be malicious here.
They design microtransactions specifially so people don't notice how much money they are really spending. I could easily see a naive kid not realizing how much he truly was spending. So I don't think the game is completely innocent here either honestly. And the game was specifically trying to game psychology to get people to spend that much. Kid was just falling into the trap.
joecanada
Member
agreed, the father should not be on the hook because his son knows better absolutely. this is why the son should have been charged with fraud. He would have never gotten a criminal record anyway, would have been like community service...
its a good move by the company but they should ban the console at the very least.
dragonyeuw
Member
So now the onus is on the publishers to regulate what amounts to irresponsible parenting? The pros/cons argument for IAPs is a separate matter from companies creating policy in order to protect irresponsible people from themselves. I mean, should the credit card company have contacted the father regarding the excess charges? How long did these charges occur over? And why are we coming up with ways to excuse these people?
Sheriff_Battlesnake
Banned
What was the wording in the "confirm purchase" screen? Boy can read, right?
They won't make $8k out of him, that's for sure. I'm amazed the kid managed to run up a bill that high -- I feel like the biggest expenditure is probably around $50 in FIFA.. you'd have to do that 150 times to hit $7500. He must have opened something extraordinary like 9000 cards to get a bill like that.
Collateral22
Member
Brb gonna go spend 8000 on fifa packs
God people are so damn mean on this forum. Stupid kid spends $8000 on 1 game ... So the kid should get criminally charged or the father just has got to owe $8000? Over some Fifa xp bonuses or whatever
Honestly, in app purchases are a new phenomenon that don't have the checks pretty much any other purchase in the world usually has. A kid usually can't march into a store with parents credit card and spend 8 gs alone... And if they can somehow its usually refundable by returning the product. I'm glad Microsoft did the customer friendly thing here and take off the charge considering no normal family in their right mind would every pay 8 fucking thousand on Fifa
Meanwhile, EA is smiling. Sure they lose this charge, but imagine all the versions of this story that are not as extreme and they take in the dough
Honestly, in app purchases are a new phenomenon that don't have the checks pretty much any other purchase in the world usually has. A kid usually can't march into a store with parents credit card and spend 8 gs alone... And if they can somehow its usually refundable by returning the product. I'm glad Microsoft did the customer friendly thing here and take off the charge considering no normal family in their right mind would every pay 8 fucking thousand on Fifa
Meanwhile, EA is smiling. Sure they lose this charge, but imagine all the versions of this story that are not as extreme and they take in the dough
Petrae
Member
I'm more on board with MS banning the console (and permalocking the young man's XBL account) than I am with using public resources by involving the police... especially since, as you mentioned, the young man probably gets a clean slate in a year and bears no lasting consequence for his actions.
Fifa card packs are gambling. They shouldn't be letting minors partake.
NinjaCoachZ
Member
Nobody deserves to be screwed out of 8000 dollars just because their son's an idiot, even if they're irresponsible. That's absolutely an abnormal amount even by microtransactions standards.
Should both parties take away a harsh life lesson from this? Absolutely. There's nobody on earth who actually deserves financial woe though.
In FIFA, you buy these green FIFA points or something for real cash. It's very explicit that they're different than the in-game coins you get for playing the games in FUT or for selling cards. What's interesting, is the kid probably could have spent significantly more for this. Even if he just cashed in his cards for their base value because he was too lazy to auction them off, he'd still have been able to buy a TON of packs with the in-game money he got back. At a conservative estimate of around 9,000 cards acquired, if he quick sold them all for 200 coins (assuming lots of non-player shit cards), he'd get 1,800,000 coins which could buy him another 180 packs or so that would yield another 2,160 cards at least.
I am curious if this kid runs a streaming channel on YouTube or something. There are a lot of streamers who do nothing but open packs in hopes of getting big name players and they drop insane amounts of money because this generation of kids is fucking weird and will watch this stuff on Twitch.
mangochutney
Member
Shouldn't refund.
Kids ain't dumb. Now you'll see some see this story and think it's OK spend up all yo mommas card until you get the Messi shiny gold thing, cos Billy Gates gonna refund dat shit in the end.
StrongBlackVine
Banned
Unregulated gambling targeting minors.
No you are right...everytime a bonehead kid, no matter the age, runs up their parents, or someone else finances, the proprietor should be a "good guy" and refund them no question asked
/s
Really no one deserves to be financially ruined, but the buck has to be place on someone. The Dad, The Son, or MS
mordecaii83
Member
I know one thing... If I had a son that did that, there would be no game consoles in the house any longer (or they'd be password locked so they couldn't be accessed) and the son would have a job until he moved out.
Edit: Oh yeah, also no credit card and no more emergency fund.
Edit: Oh yeah, also no credit card and no more emergency fund.
This would effectively kill off the US market for these games. That said, I agree that consumer laws need to be overhauled in this area to keep up with technological changes. There is a need for better disclaimers. Too many stories involving itunes, play store and XBL/PSN for this issue to be ignored any longer.
Fully agreed.
aygomyownroad
Member
Good publicity for them.
However the father needs a harsh word with his 17 year old son. A very harsh word.
Lying toerag is lucky here.
However the father needs a harsh word with his 17 year old son. A very harsh word.
Lying toerag is lucky here.
outunderthestars
Banned
Nice move by Microsoft.
Pretty much.
I'm completely ok with that scenario. Maybe they can go back to trying to design games that you buy cause you want to play them cause they are fun rather than games that try to use gambling psychology to get you to spend more. I mean even in pay games with MT you can see small influences of that (GTA V online is my favorite example. You can definitely see where being designed to encourage you to spend more has its influences in it).
I don't see how this would be a bad thing.
Fair play to Microsoft. This will be good publicity for them.
These gambling portions of actual AAA games are disgraceful. It's tactics you expect to see in "fremium" games being brought to actual games you pay $60 for. EA rake in so much money from Ultimate team as well. You only need to search it on Youtube to see how ridiculously popular. People make money reacting to their own pack openings and continue to dump that into the game to sustain the model. Some of these youtubers are easily putting in $1000+ per week.
These gambling portions of actual AAA games are disgraceful. It's tactics you expect to see in "fremium" games being brought to actual games you pay $60 for. EA rake in so much money from Ultimate team as well. You only need to search it on Youtube to see how ridiculously popular. People make money reacting to their own pack openings and continue to dump that into the game to sustain the model. Some of these youtubers are easily putting in $1000+ per week.
Unless you mean limiting microtransactions to $100 per 24 hours instead of all digital that's worse than the disease. Very few people go down the microtransaction rabbithole while there will be more and more people that buy games digitally that could spend more than $100 on steam/psn/xbox marketplace etc...