Eight-Year-Old Girl Blows $1400 on Smurfberries

[SelectivelyEvil13]

"I thought the app preyed on children," Kay said.

And yet she still allowed her child to play the game completely unsupervised without bothering to utilize the system's fail safes. Yeah, she gets no sympathy from me.

It's a goddamn Smurfs game, for crying out loud, what reason would she possibly need to supervise her child for a Smurfs game? While certain precautions should be made to make sure crap like this doesn't happen, c'mon, who expects their 8-year-old daughter to ring up a $1400 bill of Smurfberries? I'd trust my daughter enough to play the game responsibly.

As much as we'd like parents to do their job, they can't be everywhere their child is 24/7.

This is a situation where I more than understand the frustration had by the parent because, as you simply put it, we're talking about a Smurf's game of all things that is clearly targeted to a young audience.

If there was not even an adequate confirmation system to watch over such weighty transactions ($99 for a imaginary fruit?!?), then that sounds quite unscrupulous. This is also an instance that harms the "iPads[footnote]Or any similar mulitmedia device for that matter.[/footnote] are for the whole family" claims. These devices cannot extend past their existing market towards a family apparatus if a seemingly benign children's game can be an easy money hole that does not allow user transactions parental shields.

This is a prevalent issue with the rise in digital content that needs more transparency, just as Gralian above pointed out the matter of XBL using "Points" rather than cold hard dollar signs.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

Most games include a message that specifically says "Are you sure you want to purchase blah blah blah for real world money price?" or lists that it COSTS MONEY to the side of the game.

People seriously need to either pay more attention to what they are doing, as its kinda hard to miss these things in most scenarios, or they need to SUPERVISE THEIR KIDS or at least TEACH THEM that things cost money!!! I mean, considering most games -require- you to enter a debit/credit card number to purchase, I don't see how you -can't- tell it costs money unless you got the app from someone else.

Good for her that she got refunded, I hope she actually punished the child, like, I don't know, ground them from the Ipad and teach them that they should check this kind of stuff?

Maybe its just my family, but I seriously gotta wonder who lets their kids, who do things online, borrow perosnal information like credit card numbers and such? I mean, I wasn't even allowed access to my bank account until about this November, and even then I have a 5 dollar limit on purchases, and 20$ limit on taking money from an ATM... Not being tech savy isn't really an excuse in todays day and age, especially since people who are 60, 70 years old can use computers perfectly well...

The ignorance of people never fails to surprise me...

 

[Merkavar]

It does seem a bit odd that a game ostensibly for children would charge $19 for a bucket of snowflakes or $99 for a wagon of smurfberries,

that to me is just bad. no ingame item should ever cost more that a full priced new release. for $99 i could buy a new game from my local game shop and have enough change for some subway.

it just seems like they are trying to rip idiots off. maybe not idiots but people who arent paying attention 100%. cause who in their right mind would pay that much for an ingame item?

People seriously need to either pay more attention to what they are doing, as its kinda hard to miss these things in most scenarios
Maybe its just my family, but I seriously gotta wonder who lets their kids, who do things online, borrow perosnal information like credit card numbers and such?

it is an 8 ear old. they probably just saw the pretty colours of the smurfberries and pressed accept a few times.

also i doubt she borrowed any credit cards to buy this stuff. would have just been added to the apple account thingo like with music

like back when i was eight i used to call sex hotlines, i didnt need a credit card for that it would just be put on the phone bill

 

[olicon]

I would like to challenge these "Parent should have been paying attention to what the kid was doing" naysayers to try and actually raise a kid. Or heck, even take 5 minutes to think back to when YOU were a kid. Seriously, I get that we're still sore from all the "everything is video game's fault" fire from random parents, but we need to cut with the "It's 100% the parent's fault" knee-jerk reactions to stories like these. I'm not saying the mom is completely absolved of fault, but honestly: try raising a kid and never have something similar happen. Just try it.

 

[Danpascooch]

I was almost willing to side with the mother on this one, until this:

"Madison's mother let her download smurfberries with the help of her older sister, who knew the family's iTunes password."

Giving your child your itunes password when you have card details saved is the same as giving them your PIN. This is what pre-paid cards are for.

Aren't Iphones and Ipads bound to an account? Meaning they are basically always logged in?

I don't think she needed a password at time of purchase.

I haven't changed any settings on my iPod but I have to input a password every time I want to download something from the App store, even free stuff (baring the 15 minute window).

so what? She could have entered the password to DOWNLOAD it, but did she have to enter the password to buy stuff?

If she didn't have to enter the password to buy stuff then it's totally not her fault, like I said, there is absolutely no reason to assume this game is going to charge you when it's aimed at 5 year olds.

 

[Danpascooch]

Wait, so she didn't enter a credit card and the bill was sent to her?

That's bullshit, this is one where I'm willing to blame the game and not the parent.

It is a game made for fucking four year olds where you can rack up thousands of dollars of charges without the parent entering a credit card or giving permission at any stage?

Fuck that, I hope the game gets the book thrown at them in court.

Pretty much sums up my opinion, albeit without the obscenities (not that i feel offended reading it). It shouldn't be that easy for an 8-year old to fill a bill of $1400 in a game. Whenever money transfers over the internet is made, it should be complex enough to avoid simple "click = pay" mistakes.

You call them obscenities, I call them "sentence enhancers"

 

[Smooth Operator]

Christ, $100 on a children game consumable item, a damn consumable costs the same as two triple A games... this is simply insane, never expected there are worse companies then Activision.

 

[Kilmoran]

Reminds me of the days when you paid for games by the hour...

 

[Dragonpit]

Holy crap! The whole family had the password!? Isn't that a bit irresponsible? I mean, my mom gave me crap when I let my sister use my Amazon account to buy a few things (led to a bit of misusage of my finances, my sister no longer has access to my account). And why the heck does an child's game charge real money for in-game items? That seems to be extortion in some way, shape, or form.

 

[Krion_Vark]

"I thought the app preyed on children," Kay said.

And yet she still allowed her child to play the game completely unsupervised without bothering to utilize the system's fail safes. Yeah, she gets no sympathy from me. It's just one more parent teaching kids they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions or inactions through the process known as example.

When you buy a game made for 4 year olds and don't enter your credit card into it, it's pretty safe to assume it won't let your four year old rack up over a thousand dollars in charges.

This isn't like the Xbox lady who ENTERED HER CREDIT CARD and then didn't check her statements for 18 months, this is someone who didn't give the game a credit card, and the game is made for people around the age of Kindergarten.

At some point it's no longer the parents fault, there was NOTHING that would lead her to believe anything like this could have happened, she can't be watching the kid 24/7

read the ending again the girl had the help of her older sister to enter in the password to the iTunes account that HAD the credit card information. So blame the parent for being an idiot and having the sister enter the password and not her.

 

[Ionait]

I'm just going to guess here that a lot of the posters blaming the mom for not supervising her child are not parents.

Let me tell you this. We got our two year old daughter a Bugsby reader for Christmas (you touch the words with the pen and it reads to you) promising each other we'd watch her always while she used it so she wouldn't accidentally rip pages or harm it. (The books are 10 usd a pop or more, which is crazy.) And we have. Yet, I discovered the other day a page missing from one of the books.

In reality, you can only hover creepily over your child so much. Even designating only specific events for said hovering (i.e. using an expensive toy, as in my example) doesn't always work. You are a parent but that's not to say you're a robot. Dinner doesn't magically get to your table. The house isn't mysteriously swept and mopped. And eventually your child will stop sleeping for 90% of the day. I'm just glad my daughter hasn't learned how to turn door knobs yet.

And as for the people blowing the whistle on the older daughter having the iTunes password. The older daughter's age isn't listed. She could easily be in her mid to late teens. Her parents could very well have said, here is the password for when you want to buy music. We are trusting you with it because you're old enough and responsible enough to know to use it properly (and that we will ground you for life if you over spend). It's actually a great idea to give your children these kinds of responsibilities as they grow.

 

[Danpascooch]

"I thought the app preyed on children," Kay said.

And yet she still allowed her child to play the game completely unsupervised without bothering to utilize the system's fail safes. Yeah, she gets no sympathy from me. It's just one more parent teaching kids they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions or inactions through the process known as example.

When you buy a game made for 4 year olds and don't enter your credit card into it, it's pretty safe to assume it won't let your four year old rack up over a thousand dollars in charges.

This isn't like the Xbox lady who ENTERED HER CREDIT CARD and then didn't check her statements for 18 months, this is someone who didn't give the game a credit card, and the game is made for people around the age of Kindergarten.

At some point it's no longer the parents fault, there was NOTHING that would lead her to believe anything like this could have happened, she can't be watching the kid 24/7

read the ending again the girl had the help of her older sister to enter in the password to the iTunes account that HAD the credit card information. So blame the parent for being an idiot and having the sister enter the password and not her.

You know what? I still think it's bullshit.

Any game that is billed as a game for four year olds that charges $100 dollars for nothing and doesn't require you to enter a card number is obviously designed to create situations like this as a source of income.

It's exploitation.

 

[lacktheknack]

"I thought the app preyed on children," Kay said.

And yet she still allowed her child to play the game completely unsupervised without bothering to utilize the system's fail safes. Yeah, she gets no sympathy from me. It's just one more parent teaching kids they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions or inactions through the process known as example.

I thought kids complained about overbearing parents...

I mean seriously! Who could have guessed she'd buy nearly a GRAND AND A HALF in smurfberries? You don't supervise your child over everything they do (you'll get non-functioning children if you do), and she might not be a technically literate as you. You'd want sympathy if YOUR kid screwed you over.

I've had it with people somehow assuming that the eight-year-old is entirely blameless. That kind of thinking results in teens who somehow think they can do no wrong. I'm sure we don't want that to happen.

Wait...

 

[Ionait]

It's worth noting that there is a huge chunk of story missing here as to the older sister bit. Is the older sister tech savvy? Was she otherwise responsible with the password? Did she realize what she was doing when she was "helping" her sister? What did the help entail? Just entering the password? What did the younger sister say about it when asking for it?

It is highly unlikely that the older sister would knowingly get herself into THAT much trouble. If she had the password and her younger sister didn't, there's probably a reason for that, that she is old enough to use the password intelligently and the younger one is not. So in my opinion, even the older sister couldn't have really known what she was getting into.

I would like to see for myself what the buying process in this specific game is. It sounds like they disguised it extremely well if you consider all the missing details.

Edited to add:
And yes, I realize I am making an argument based on "missing details". But so is everyone else who is trying to judge this woman's parenting or even trying to argue who is to blame.

 

[Charli]

I'm somehow finding the south park episode 'Dances with Smurfs' alot funnier after this.

 

[Random Fella]

It's definitely the parents fault, they shouldn't allow children to have access to their finances. They should also supervise them when it comes to potentially dangerous items like the I-pad because it could contain apps that children shouldn't see.

 

[FattyDingDongs]

This is how I think it happen. Judging by the picture it looks like there is some kind of in-game currency. So she went to the in-game store to buy in-game items with her in-game currency. But instead of using the in-game currency it used real life money. Now this game looks like Farmville but with a Smurf theme so its clearly marketed towards kids. We are not told if the parent or the older sister put in the credit card number or something similar in so she could buy these items. If they did I'm pretty sure they would have figured out it was using real life currency right there. So I'm guessing that every time she clicked on an item she wanted to buy, it did buy those items but with real life currency so it ends up being click = pay. I going to have to say this game was preying on kids making this mistake.


Also most of you are dumb for thinking this is shitty parenting. The only way her mother could have know this was happening if she had already played the game or watch every second her child played the game. You people act like she gave her the ipad then left the house to go shopping. Most likley she was in the same room as her but was probably making dinner while her kid sat at the table playing the game.

Also it said she is 8 years olds not an infant like most of you think.

 

[Wtd]

Oh my god was i the only kid out there that knew the value of money?

Who charges 99$ for virtual goods in a ages 4+ game? It scares me what people are marketing...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Does anyone know what those smurfberries actually *do* in the game? First time I hear about micro transaction item for a hundred bucks and in a smurf game no less.

I did some looking into this. Andy's bang on the nail with the price, and it's been getting some stick before this. $99.99 for a wagon of smurfberries.(2,000 I believe)

This seemed odd to me, because historically smurfs have no monetary system. They use the barter system, which is why they were blamed for communism. (Seriously...we had a wacky world)

Capcom's website marks it as FREE, but in smaller grey writing writes that you can spend any amount on it within 15 minutes without the password - although a number of sites have said that people have bought after this without the password.

Capcom's site does say that it's due to Apple's modifications though.

But it gets creepier

For some time, I couldn't actually find out what Smurfberries do (there's no information on the Facebook/Twitter or Download page, and then I ran into this on a review.

(but not Smurfette, whose love needs to be ?bought? using Smurfberries).

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/Smurf%27s+Village/feature.asp?c=25927

WHOA!...you're pimping?

Of course, when you can hack the number of smurfberries you have through a Hex-editor, you do have to wonder...

The Daily Mail do their usual scare story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337425/Children-young-4-using-iPad-iPhone-games-100-buying-sprees.html

But at the end of it, Apple are letting games designed for kids be sped up by racking up mum and dad's credit card. Their security - a password - which is over-ridden for 15 minutes.

Defend that if you can. NB: The Mail's expose was 2 months ago.

 

[CommanderKirov]

... I'm sorry but my mind is blown...

99.99$ For a wagon of smurfberries... Especially in a game such as smurfs... This reminds me of that one Dilbert joke.

"This product will cost 1.000.000 dollars and will cause terrible headache forcing the client to buy more copies"
"But how will that sell?"
"Well we will target the niche market of rich idiots. As long as one of them buys it we are set".


In some time the Fisher Price's toys will automaticly charge 1000$ on the parents credit card every time their three year old child presses a big red button conviniently placed on the top of the thing... And the button will be covered with sugar.