"My son racked up £1k bill on Xbox"

[Shade02]

How much and what DLC did he buy? :O

I find it hard to break £20 anually with DLC

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Kid realllllly ought to have known better. But, I can guarantee he got a screaming when she heard that. See, parents, this is why fiscal responsibility and learning the value of a dollar are important things to teach your spawnlings.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

Am i a bad person for laghing at the mother?

Not if she's that stupid. She hasn't checked her card statements for six months?!

Miss Matthews, a multi-media executive with the KM Group, is planning to contact a solicitor about the payments.

She said Barclays and Microsoft have denied any liability over the bill, which has been paid. The Xbox Live account has now been closed.

No surprises there. I do like one of the reader comments on the article though...

ian b wrote:

What a sad pathetic woman....."i never knew"...Always someone elses fault isnt it !!...If my lad done that i wouldnt be crying to the media (probably for a few extra quid)...Id have stuck my f**king foot through the machine and as someone stated below if my son looked like that get the fat little runt outside for some much needed exercise !!

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Gudrests]

Here's how to fix such shitty parenting (the story is incidentally hilarious):
1) Destroy the xbox in front of the kid
2) Take away enough of his stuff to cover half of the bill, and make him work to pay off the other half
3) ???? - something tough love related
4) Congratulations, you are no longer a shitty parent, and your brood will think twice before treating credit cards like mere plastic.

But they are mere plastic *insert derp derp face* Hell im not that bad with money and i have a full time job and no bills...*kinda*

Still...Xbox needs an easier way to take credit cards off of the Xbox so they can only be used once and then poof the info is gone

 

[dududf]

Pretty stupid parenting, but what a dick child

This sums up my entire attitude of this situation. Also, the boy's not going to realize how much he's spent - it's not his money. All he realizes is that Mommy and Daddy use these cards, and it gives them money - he doesn't realize that they toil for 8 hours a day to get the money on that card.

Aw hell no. 11=/= an age of you not understanding money. Christ when I was 7 I knew a crapton better. His age is no excuse what so ever.

 

[duchaked]

lol...what you get by leaving the card account saved in the Xbox
with a stupid kid

 

[kebab4you]

for being 11 year old it sure is a stupid little boy. And suck it mom should teach you to supervise your children.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

I remember being 11. I remember that i wouldn't do something as stupid as this shit.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Stupid move on the mothers part to give a child access to that, but that kid would be in for a major "ass whuppin" if that was my money. He'd be working that shit off in the salt mines.

 

[SomeBoredGuy]

Poor woman. Every 11-year-old I have met understands some perception of money and the kid should have known that you can't go spending all of your parents money that they have worked hard for and not given you permission to use.

I guess you could say it's the mother's fault for leaving the credit card on the account, but she probably didn't understand it beyond her buying her son the ability to play with his friends online for awhile. Not to mention the fact that I've heard nothing but bad things about how easy it is to remove credit cards from Xbox accounts.

If it were me, I wouldn't let that kid back on the thing until he pays back every penny (legally, of course). And that's only with supervision so he doesn't pull crap like this again.

 

[FamoFunk]

Adding - Myself, at 20 years old, and my own money, will only buy stuff off the PSN store if I've brought a £20 card from GAME etc.

I will not link my card up because I know I'll waste it on shit I don't want and I will forgot myself there is a limit.
So I do feel with the kid if that was the case and he didn't think "hahaha Mum's card... SPEND!"

But ye, Mum should of had a bank statment by this time D:

 

[mento 2425]

at that age, i still asked my parents whether i should allow the computer to update java

 

[.No.]

Here's how to fix such shitty parenting (the story is incidentally hilarious):
1) Destroy the xbox in front of the kid
2) Take away enough of his stuff to cover half of the bill, and make him work to pay off the other half
3) ???? - something tough love related
4) Congratulations, you are no longer a shitty parent, and your brood will think twice before treating credit cards like mere plastic.

No, step four is: Profit!

 

[Czaran]

lol I went through that crap with Microsoft too.
They wouldn't let me take down my parents credit card because it was auto renewing itself.
We had to go through a lot of crappy phone people.
AND Microsoft took away the ability to take away payment options online.

 

[V TheSystem V]

On one hand, its just her being nice and letting her child play online. On the other, its the child being an idiot abusing something he shouldn't have. I'll bet you the mother didn't even know of the market place, just thought it was to pay for online.
Also, have you ever tried to remove the credit card from the account? you cant. Watch, go log into xbox.com and try to remove it. You have to have ANOTHER on there to do it. And to cancel your auto renewal, you have to CALL. Its BS and chips
Honestly the bank should have warned her too

I managed to remove my mother's credit card details from my Xbox AGES ago without calling. Put mine on there after I got one, managed to delete her's with some problems but was done in about 10 minutes. Was a pain but I managed to do it, no calling.

 

[sulld1]

I propose she sell one of his Kidneys to get the money back

i think you sir maybe onto some thing here. however i think the going price on a kidney is slightly more than a grand, well profit for the mum is good....

it is stupid though to leave your card details with an eleven year old... i was dum as f*** when i was 11...

 

[Phyroxis]

Am i a bad person for laghing at the mother?

Possible for "laghing" but definitely not for laughing.

 

[JoshGod]

My mom trusts me with her credit cards enough to hook up her credit card to any accounts i wish, i have used it without permission over a holiday sale once, but i payed her back in the following days. That eleven year old is gunna get some serious punishment, also i'm surprised that you could spend that much, and there is that much he would want on the xbl marketplace.

 

[BioHazardMan]

I love how the woman says that her son didn't understand how a credit card works. Is she fucking serious? That's parenting for you. I knew how a credit card works when I was probably sic or seven.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Here's how to fix such shitty parenting (the story is incidentally hilarious):
1) Destroy the xbox in front of the kid
2) Take away enough of his stuff to cover half of the bill, and make him work to pay off the other half
3) ???? - something tough love related
4) Congratulations, you are no longer a shitty parent, and your brood will think twice before treating credit cards like mere plastic.

you are aware that you're speaking of a very young 11-year-old kid who probably doesn't understand the consequences of what is just done the result of what you just said would probably alienate him from his parents for a very long time and turn his whole life into one big spiteful angry miserable lump for the sake of his mother's stupidity.

I don't know about you, but even at eleven I was aware that actions have consequences, and so is every other eleven year old I've come across. In this case, he cost his parents well over $2000, to which he must be held accountable. Besides, what's the alternative? Take away his xbox for a bit in the hopes that he learns his lesson? Bullshit! It's that idiotic my-child-does-no-wrong style of parenting that has resulted in a generation of entitled dipshits. Sorry, but I say punish the kid. At least he'll learn a very valuable lesson in the process.