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I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor. The

by Lazare 7y ago

I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor. The common thread in all these stories was "a kid spends a bunch of money, parent asks for a refund, is told no". But consider if the law says that digital goods such as this must be refunded on demand unless you can prove the purchaser wasn't a child. (If you want to really drive the point home, add a penalty clause for abuse, so you have to refund 150% of the total if there's evidence of any attempt to target minors, hide the charges, dark patterns, etc.) If Apple becomes statutorily required to refund the money, they'll get very good very quickly at kicking bad actors off their platform. This shouldn't be a system where parents try and protect themselves and their children and scummy vendors try and exploit them; it should be a shystem where Apple (and the other platforms and market operators) try to protect themselves and scummy vendors try and exploit them. Leave liability with the people most able to protect themselves, not the least able. I don't think bans or treating games like drugs is needed; if you remove the financial incentive of being abusive, you'll stop the abuse.

ldoughty 7y ago
I think parents need to understand that you can't give children a credit card, or credit-card like power. I was 14 before I was given access to a credit card.. and was given a dire warning about when it could and should be used. If parents can't lock out purchases so they have to physically approve each purchase, then yes, they should be able to get refunds and penalties... But if they give their children the password to buy/download apps unsupervised, they need to understand the consequences (and really, how the heck do you not realize that unlimited purchasing power on an app store is a possibility?) The first story in this article is about a kid with "the mental development of a 7 year old"... Well.... I wouldn't give MY 7 year old a credit card! Supervise your children! If it's too much work to monitor their purchases and approve each one, complain to the platform for more control. It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. <120 hours of work to implement a "Monthly budget" system if people demanded it. Btw, how do you miss that 3,200 pounds is spent over 3-4 months, if that clears out your bank account? I'd agree that 14 days is a bit short for a refund period, but asking for 4 months to return digital goods that have been thoroughly used by that point..... might as well shut down all the game studios...
- Lazare 7y ago
  > It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. <120 hours of work to implement a "Monthly budget" system if people demanded it. Or if the legal system assigned liability to them until they did. :)
- kalleboo 7y ago
  > It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. <120 hours of work to implement a "Monthly budget" system if people demanded it. Ironically Apple used to have this feature, but removed it when they added the Family Sharing "ask parent for approval" feature. https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/14/apple-to-end-itunes-allowances-feature-on-may-25-suggests-using-family-sharing-instead-to-oversee-kids-spending/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/14/apple-to-end-itunes-allowance...
- 0x76 7y ago
  This is a great case for debit cards, here in the Netherlands those are much more common than credit cards, so children (in my experience) learn to be better with money because you can't spend what you don't have, and if all they have is a couple of bucks of pocket money the potential loss is also far less.
ckdarby 7y ago
Consumers will abuse this, there is already proof of this with cardholders calling in to credit card companies claiming they didn't make the purchase and their credit card was stolen. Further reading on the topic can be found by researching, 'friendly fraud'. Easiest present day solution, use one time burner cards or set limit cards. http://privacy.com http://privacy.com , no fees, works within the USA, similar services throughout the world.
- Lazare 7y ago
  I'm well aware; my day job often involves dealing with such reports. I'm also aware that if you err on the side of protecting children when it comes to disputes with bottom feeders like Supercell and King their ilk, the collateral damage will mean we have fewer companies like Supercell. I consider that a feature, not a bug. :) A few people getting refunds for gems for a shitty mobile game they don't 100% deserve is a price I'm happy to pay. Business models are not inherently viable, and as a society, we don't need to protect this one. We don't NEED to find the right set of laws to let abusive freemium games survive while also protecting the vulnerable, because only one of those two conflicting goals is actually desirable.
dmix 7y ago
What about phone companies with limited data plans? A friend of mine had his kid use his iPhone's hotspot and got a $800 bill connecting it to his tablet to watch movies while on vacation. Is this the phone companies fault because the person let his kid know his iPhone password?
- Duriel 7y ago
  I wouldn’t say its the phone company’s fault directly but did they even try to contact your friend in any way to let them know that their bill is now 2, 3, 4 or even 5 times bigger than usual?
  - ialexpw 7y ago
    I mean, why should they? Most phone companies allow you to set budgets, I do not see this as an issue with the phone company in this scenario at all. As other people have said, parents should be monitoring their kids spending (if at all), most stores have an option to require the password - I do not see why this is not enough.
    - Aenyn 7y ago
      In this case it's a roaming surcharge not the kid spending money in the store.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  Yes, being able to accidentally cause $800 overages is terribly anti-consumer. After it continually happened to people roaming, the EU by law instated a cap where the operators need to request an SMS confirmation once the overages hit a certain cost. For domestic data, I can't remember the last time I saw a plan that didn't just cap your speeds once you hit your data cap.

by Lazare 7y ago

ldoughty 7y ago

I think parents need to understand that you can't give children a credit card, or credit-card like power. I was 14 before I was given access to a credit card.. and was given a dire warning about when it could and should be used. If parents can't lock out purchases so they have to physically approve each purchase, then yes, they should be able to get refunds and penalties... But if they give their children the password to buy/download apps unsupervised, they need to understand the consequences (and really, how the heck do you not realize that unlimited purchasing power on an app store is a possibility?) The first story in this article is about a kid with "the mental development of a 7 year old"... Well.... I wouldn't give MY 7 year old a credit card! Supervise your children! If it's too much work to monitor their purchases and approve each one, complain to the platform for more control. It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. <120 hours of work to implement a "Monthly budget" system if people demanded it. Btw, how do you miss that 3,200 pounds is spent over 3-4 months, if that clears out your bank account? I'd agree that 14 days is a bit short for a refund period, but asking for 4 months to return digital goods that have been thoroughly used by that point..... might as well shut down all the game studios...

Lazare 7y ago
> It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. <120 hours of work to implement a "Monthly budget" system if people demanded it. Or if the legal system assigned liability to them until they did. :)
kalleboo 7y ago
> It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. <120 hours of work to implement a "Monthly budget" system if people demanded it. Ironically Apple used to have this feature, but removed it when they added the Family Sharing "ask parent for approval" feature. https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/14/apple-to-end-itunes-allowances-feature-on-may-25-suggests-using-family-sharing-instead-to-oversee-kids-spending/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/14/apple-to-end-itunes-allowance...
0x76 7y ago
This is a great case for debit cards, here in the Netherlands those are much more common than credit cards, so children (in my experience) learn to be better with money because you can't spend what you don't have, and if all they have is a couple of bucks of pocket money the potential loss is also far less.

ckdarby 7y ago

Consumers will abuse this, there is already proof of this with cardholders calling in to credit card companies claiming they didn't make the purchase and their credit card was stolen. Further reading on the topic can be found by researching, 'friendly fraud'. Easiest present day solution, use one time burner cards or set limit cards. http://privacy.com http://privacy.com , no fees, works within the USA, similar services throughout the world.

Lazare 7y ago
I'm well aware; my day job often involves dealing with such reports. I'm also aware that if you err on the side of protecting children when it comes to disputes with bottom feeders like Supercell and King their ilk, the collateral damage will mean we have fewer companies like Supercell. I consider that a feature, not a bug. :) A few people getting refunds for gems for a shitty mobile game they don't 100% deserve is a price I'm happy to pay. Business models are not inherently viable, and as a society, we don't need to protect this one. We don't NEED to find the right set of laws to let abusive freemium games survive while also protecting the vulnerable, because only one of those two conflicting goals is actually desirable.

dmix 7y ago

What about phone companies with limited data plans? A friend of mine had his kid use his iPhone's hotspot and got a $800 bill connecting it to his tablet to watch movies while on vacation. Is this the phone companies fault because the person let his kid know his iPhone password?

Duriel 7y ago
I wouldn’t say its the phone company’s fault directly but did they even try to contact your friend in any way to let them know that their bill is now 2, 3, 4 or even 5 times bigger than usual?
- ialexpw 7y ago
  I mean, why should they? Most phone companies allow you to set budgets, I do not see this as an issue with the phone company in this scenario at all. As other people have said, parents should be monitoring their kids spending (if at all), most stores have an option to require the password - I do not see why this is not enough.
  - Aenyn 7y ago
    In this case it's a roaming surcharge not the kid spending money in the store.
kalleboo 7y ago
Yes, being able to accidentally cause $800 overages is terribly anti-consumer. After it continually happened to people roaming, the EU by law instated a cap where the operators need to request an SMS confirmation once the overages hit a certain cost. For domestic data, I can't remember the last time I saw a plan that didn't just cap your speeds once you hit your data cap.