Dad Blames Microsoft for Son's Xbox Live Spending Spree

[theultimateend]

well the dad either didn't know or care enough to set up the xbox properly so his son can use it without wasting money. WHY THE FUCK is nobody bothered that the kid plays cod?

Cause there is absolutely no harm in it?

I played every violent game under the sun as a child, it actually helped me vent my frustrations since I was pretty badly bullied in school.

Flip out and stab a kid because they won't leave you alone or play a game and relax. The latter option seemed much nicer.

Note I didn't "Just" play violent video games, I was pretty much a fan of everything as a kid. But I'll be darned if Goldeneye wasn't a proxy for releasing the angst that early bloomers gave me.

What's sad is that it's those kinds of parents who end up in situations like this and also blame games when their kid grows up to be a rampaging asshole.

My only worry there would be an erroneous connection between the video games and the kids.

 

[Dastardly]

The idea of this company refunding everything and/or changing their user interface because brats like this scam the system is a bit grating. But I guess that's the reality of life and business. You need to build things with the lowest common denominator in mind and so we all get to see such gems like cups that warn us coffee may be hot.

But why should it bother us if they refund it?

I think too many people are assuming a lot about this man's attitude and outlook. I'm sure he doesn't enjoy having to chase down a refund for this, and I'm sure he's angry and frustrated at all of the things he woulda-coulda-shoulda that might have prevented this. But he's not looking to gain anything by this.

He made a mistake, and it ought not to be a thousand-dollar mistake. I'm relatively certain he'll take steps toward making sure it doesn't happen again, and I'm sure the kid will bear his punishment for his part... but the father just doesn't see fit to release all those details to Microsoft or to the press.

All we're being told is that, among possibly many other things he's doing, he's asking Microsoft to refund money his son spent without right or permission. Is that so bad? If your kid stole money from your wallet and bought something crazy, wouldn't you want the company to refund your money in exchange for taking back what should never have been bought?

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Okay 70 questions:

1) How in the fuck do you spend that much on XBLA?! Seriously.

2) Did that 12y/o not realise he was spending that much money? And only on CoD and Fifa? How in the name of the lord, Jesus Rojas (the leader of my cult) does one manage that?

3) It's obivously the fault of the parent and child, it needs no debate really, so who's bright idea was it to make a big thing about it?

4) Seriously is there really no better news to report other than "parent gets fucked over for his/her stupidity or the stupidy of his/her son/daughter and blames software company"?

5-69) HOLY FUCK, REALLY?! GODDAMN SON!

70) How great would it be if there was an article like this only the father found out the son used his credit card to subscribe to, like, a porn site so they try and sue, I don't know, Alexis Texas for not personally informing him that his son was watching her prance around naked having rough sex with strange men. Christ that would be funny and I really wouldn't be all that surprised what with him dumb and naive some parents are when it comes to the internet...


Captcha: want more?
I'm sure people have had just about enough of my ramblings captcha...

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Ignorant parent, that's all. Learn about the technology you're using.

 

[zombiesinc]

Yeah, I agree with that. My parents took the time to make sure I was ready for everything I was exposed to, and they made damn sure that I knew I shouldn't be emulating any violence I saw in video games or movies.

It's never as simple as the person who is arguing for or against makes it out to be but these sort of things are such important and obvious ones to address and recognize when it comes to parenting that I really don't think it's even necessary to have kids yourself to be able to know their importance. This entire situation is stupid, regardless of who's really to blame. Hopefully someone, somewhere learned a lesson.

It says 'Haste The Day'. I don't listen to the band an absolute ton but loved the t-shirt and couldn't resist. ^^

That's what I thought, and now I'm excited! >.> Don't even care if you're not their biggest fan, it's just awesome to see that there's more than one other person on this website aside from me who's heard of them in the first place.

Although I haven't listened to them a lot, especially lately, I was obsessed with one of their songs. So, when I ended up seeing them open for another band, I was pretty stoked. Very cool that you even recognized the t-shirt!

 

[Signa]

I honestly can't blame the dad too much on this one, because I know some people just don't give a shit about games. He probably just set up the system so that his son could play it and be out of his hair. It's irresponsible, no doubt, but I see it as one of those things that you just might not have foreseen as a possibility. As gamers, it's easy to forget that fact because we are so immersed in these systems.

Now the kid on the other hand, is a bastard. There is no doubt in my mind that a 12 year old knows what he's doing with his dad's money. I bet he just wanted to do it while he could get away with it and overestimated his dad's vigilance of his bank account.

I also wouldn't mind pointing a little bit of blame at MS for making their system too easy to buy stuff on, and making child accounts useless. As I understand them, they are practically a Silver subscription with a fee. That doesn't mitigate what the kid did, but it would be nice if their systems were just a bit more consumer friendly. This kind of abuse is practically encouraged with the current system in place.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Yeah, the only person to blame here is the father. Getting in contact with Microsoft to complain isn't going to help him since it's his fault. Well, the kids fault to. At 12 years old he should know damn fine what he's doing with that money.

 

[veloper]

Almost as dumb as simply giving your kid your credit card.
You save that credit card number on your xbox, you keep it away from anyone.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

I honestly can't blame the dad too much on this one, because I know some people just don't give a shit about games. He probably just set up the system so that his son could play it and be out of his hair. It's irresponsible, no doubt, but I see it as one of those things that you just might not have foreseen as a possibility. As gamers, it's easy to forget that fact because we are so immersed in these systems.

Now the kid on the other hand, is a bastard. There is no doubt in my mind that a 12 year old knows what he's doing with his dad's money. I bet he just wanted to do it while he could get away with it and overestimated his dad's vigilance of his bank account.

I also wouldn't mind pointing a little bit of blame at MS for making their system too easy to buy stuff on, and making child accounts useless. As I understand them, they are practically a Silver subscription with a fee. That doesn't mitigate what the kid did, but it would be nice if their systems were just a bit more consumer friendly. This kind of abuse is practically encouraged with the current system in place.

Sorry, but if you're not going to take the time to learn how something you're giving your kid works, you really have no one to blame but yourself when things start to go wrong. You can't really turn around and start blaming other people since you were unaware of what might happen. Being a gamer has nothing to do with it: you learn as much as you can about what you're using before you use it.

So it's Microsoft's fault because the system is too easy to use? Should online distributors start putting millions of passwords and biometrics just to stop the few idiots who do stuff like this? As I said in an earlier post, put as many safeguards as you like, people will still do stuff like this and ***** about how the system didn't ask if they were really really really really sure.

 

[Signa]

I honestly can't blame the dad too much on this one, because I know some people just don't give a shit about games. He probably just set up the system so that his son could play it and be out of his hair. It's irresponsible, no doubt, but I see it as one of those things that you just might not have foreseen as a possibility. As gamers, it's easy to forget that fact because we are so immersed in these systems.

Now the kid on the other hand, is a bastard. There is no doubt in my mind that a 12 year old knows what he's doing with his dad's money. I bet he just wanted to do it while he could get away with it and overestimated his dad's vigilance of his bank account.

I also wouldn't mind pointing a little bit of blame at MS for making their system too easy to buy stuff on, and making child accounts useless. As I understand them, they are practically a Silver subscription with a fee. That doesn't mitigate what the kid did, but it would be nice if their systems were just a bit more consumer friendly. This kind of abuse is practically encouraged with the current system in place.

Sorry, but if you're not going to take the time to learn how something you're giving your kid works, you really have no one to blame but yourself when things start to go wrong. You can't really turn around and start blaming other people since you were unaware of what might happen. Being a gamer has nothing to do with it: you learn as much as you can about what you're using before you use it.

So it's Microsoft's fault because the system is too easy to use? Should online distributors start putting millions of passwords and biometrics just to stop the few idiots who do stuff like this? As I said in an earlier post, put as many safeguards as you like, people will still do stuff like this and ***** about how the system didn't ask if they were really really really really sure.

Far easier said that done. Try juggling a career, parenting, and maintaining a household and then tell me how much time and energy you have left to figure out how your kids toys work. Once you know they aren't going to swallow them, there isn't much need to worry. The kid was 12 fucking years old. You can't tell me you know one single damn kid that doesn't know the meaning of money at that age. If he really didn't, then yes, the parents are more to blame than I'm suggesting. But I'm certain the kid was just being a dick.

And read my post again, I'm not saying MS and every company ever should fix their systems to prevent this. Strawman much?

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

I honestly can't blame the dad too much on this one, because I know some people just don't give a shit about games. He probably just set up the system so that his son could play it and be out of his hair. It's irresponsible, no doubt, but I see it as one of those things that you just might not have foreseen as a possibility. As gamers, it's easy to forget that fact because we are so immersed in these systems.

Now the kid on the other hand, is a bastard. There is no doubt in my mind that a 12 year old knows what he's doing with his dad's money. I bet he just wanted to do it while he could get away with it and overestimated his dad's vigilance of his bank account.

I also wouldn't mind pointing a little bit of blame at MS for making their system too easy to buy stuff on, and making child accounts useless. As I understand them, they are practically a Silver subscription with a fee. That doesn't mitigate what the kid did, but it would be nice if their systems were just a bit more consumer friendly. This kind of abuse is practically encouraged with the current system in place.

Sorry, but if you're not going to take the time to learn how something you're giving your kid works, you really have no one to blame but yourself when things start to go wrong. You can't really turn around and start blaming other people since you were unaware of what might happen. Being a gamer has nothing to do with it: you learn as much as you can about what you're using before you use it.

So it's Microsoft's fault because the system is too easy to use? Should online distributors start putting millions of passwords and biometrics just to stop the few idiots who do stuff like this? As I said in an earlier post, put as many safeguards as you like, people will still do stuff like this and ***** about how the system didn't ask if they were really really really really sure.

Far easier said that done. Try juggling a career, parenting, and maintaining a household and then tell me how much time and energy you have left to figure out how your kids toys work. Once you know they aren't going to swallow them, there isn't much need to worry. The kid was 12 fucking years old. You can't tell me you know one single damn kid that doesn't know the meaning of money at that age. If he really didn't, then yes, the parents are more to blame than I'm suggesting. But I'm certain the kid was just being a dick.

And read my post again, I'm not saying MS and every company ever should fix their systems to prevent this. Strawman much?

It's not like the kid is handing over physical money; he is just clicking a button on the screen. It's not so unreasonable to assume he wasn't aware actual money was being used. It's easy to look at it as an adult and think "well of course actual money is used" but it's a little different when you were a kid. Did you know everything you know now when you were twelve years old?

I'm not sure that is definitely the case, but the blame has to fall on the parents for allowing it to happen. If the kid did it on purpose, he needs to be punished, but the parents allowed this to go on for so long. I'm sorry, but if you can't do something as basic as checking your bank statements once in a while you really have no right to complain. This isn't like the kid spent five dollars, the day noticed and complained to Microsoft. It's a pretty big oversight on the father's part.

I have reread your post. You said Microsoft's system mad purchasing too easy. I replied asking if you were suggesting companies should make things harder to purchase. At what point do you believe companies have "done enough" to prevent unwanted purchases? I'm not really sure how that is a Strawman argument.

 

[Steve Waltz]

True, that's why we should implement a Parent Aptitude Test (I call him Pat, for short) that would use a series of hypothetical situations and financial/employment analysis to determine whether or not someone is fit to be a parent.

For example:
You are at the supermarket with your six year old kid. He is screaming the roof down, knocking shit off the shelf and generally being an insufferable little dicksplash. Do you...
A)Start screaming back at him to 'fucking behave yourself, you little prick.'
B)Calmly pull him to one side and tell him this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
C)Completely ignore him and continue deciding what brand of cheap liquor you want to get shit-faced on this evening.

D) None of the above.

Take him/her outside of the store and into the car. Strap the child in the back seat, get in the driver's seat and just silently sit. The kid will scream and wail for a while still, but eventually calm down and start to think. *Then* it'll probably safe to go back into the store and go back to shopping. It would be a nice silent session of pouting from the child until you're back home.

B is not a correct answer either. In fact, C *is* a little bit closer to better parenting.You don't calm down a child in the middle of a tantrum by talking to them. Kids don't listen when in the middle of a tantrum. Won't stop unless they get what they want, or if they're ignored long enough. There lies the problem with being a public tantrum is that ignoring the child in public is rude. Beside that, a six year old child throwing tantrums? That's a sign of a spoiled child that *needs* scolding otherwise it'll never stop. He/she throws tantrums at that age because he knows he can get away with it. Six years old is *way* too old for tantrums. Punishing is the most sensible way to stop that kind of behaviour at that age.

 

[Yosato]

What bullshit. 12 years old and he didn't realise he was paying real money? Yeah right, can't believe the dad actually fell for that. How the hell do you spend a grand on CoD and Fifa anyway?

 

[Coolshark]

Never let your kid know the credit/debit number. Ever. You enter that crap yourself.

 

[unstabLized]

In my opinion, completely the parents fault. Microsoft shouldn't give back a single dime. Also,i agree with The Plunk. What 12 year old doesn't understand the symbol of money? He's not gonna get a cent back. If he was so concerned about this, he would've been more careful. Microsoft doesn't need a verification or password or whatever. They WANT the money, and if you're stupid enough to somehow spend that money "accidentally", then that's your fault and yours only.

 

[rob_simple]

True, that's why we should implement a Parent Aptitude Test (I call him Pat, for short) that would use a series of hypothetical situations and financial/employment analysis to determine whether or not someone is fit to be a parent.

For example:
You are at the supermarket with your six year old kid. He is screaming the roof down, knocking shit off the shelf and generally being an insufferable little dicksplash. Do you...
A)Start screaming back at him to 'fucking behave yourself, you little prick.'
B)Calmly pull him to one side and tell him this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
C)Completely ignore him and continue deciding what brand of cheap liquor you want to get shit-faced on this evening.

D) None of the above.

Take him/her outside of the store and into the car. Strap the child in the back seat, get in the driver's seat and just silently sit. The kid will scream and wail for a while still, but eventually calm down and start to think. *Then* it'll probably safe to go back into the store and go back to shopping. It would be a nice silent session of pouting from the child until you're back home.

B is not a correct answer either. In fact, C *is* a little bit closer to better parenting.You don't calm down a child in the middle of a tantrum by talking to them. Kids don't listen when in the middle of a tantrum. Won't stop unless they get what they want, or if they're ignored long enough. There lies the problem with being a public tantrum is that ignoring the child in public is rude. Beside that, a six year old child throwing tantrums? That's a sign of a spoiled child that *needs* scolding otherwise it'll never stop. He/she throws tantrums at that age because he knows he can get away with it. Six years old is *way* too old for tantrums. Punishing is the most sensible way to stop that kind of behaviour at that age.

Have you seen a lot of kids, nowadays? It's not uncommon for some of them to throw tantrums right up until the age of about 18.

But, as for the rest of your post, point taken. I was merely trying to illustrate the point that there really should be some criteria set in place to decide if you are fit to raise a child. After all, you need a license to drive a car, and a poorly raised kid can grow up to do a lot more damage than a car.

 

[easternflame]

What bothers me I guess is that be obviously wasn't paying attention to his kid for 6 months.

Not only that, he wasn't paying attention to his bills for six months. That shows a total lack of responsability on his part. Which only goes further to sustain my point. The father was not a responsible man.

I agree, I just don't want people saying it's because his kid was playing CoD. There are far better reasons is all.

No, I played COD when I was twelve too.

 

[Negatempest]

Okay, okay. I have just one question that seems to be brought up a lot in this thread.

Uhem, What the **** does playing a violent video game have to do with the father being charged a good grand for DLC, or Microsoft Points to be more accurate.


The thread discussion is about the son spending money that was not his, very easily, on his Xbox live account. Yes, a "parental" system is in place, but it is something you actually have to work at to make sure it works. I have looked at the settings and the choices are so....vague. Are you locked out completely from Marketplace or are you just not allowed to make a purchase?

Though the biggest issue is this. It SHOULD be an option to either keep your credit card number or always add in a new number each purchase. And IF your credit card is saved, but you want to remove it you have to go to customer support and give your personal information of course. THAN Microsoft allows you to remove your credit card information. So now you have to go into your own account, again maybe, to finally remove your credit card number.

It is more of a hassle to remove your card number than it is to purchase DLC.

 

[masticina]

$1150

Wow

But yes simply signing up to a XBL account doesn't makes it save. In its most basic form it is ripe for abuse.

Of course with this kid playing 18+ games [even if 16+ would suffice] one thing is obvious. The father didn't check what was going on. And like anything that you don't check.. it can go horrible wrong.

So $1150, that is allot of DLC..

I don't expect that he gets his money or any money.. after all legally their contracts probably are 100% tight. It would cost allot of money and time to undo these events.. and he did sign the nobody read these TOS.