12-Year-Old Rings Up $1400 Farmville Bill

[Antari]

I find it interesting there's no comment from a father.

 

[mechanixis]

Im dumbfounded by this If I was 12 and was going to blow through 1200$ on gaming, Id be getting a mad stack of ps1 games( at the time). Would never ever cross my mind to spend it on something as stupid as farmville what is wrong with kids these days.

Holy shit, you're right. For that money I could get a PS3 and enough games to last me a year.

 

[Au Naturel.]

What a silly child! Is there even stuff worth spending that much money for?

 

[TraumaHound]

I was under the impression that Farmville is free to play for FB folks (I see posts all the time from friends on there, nothing that interested me enough to ever look into the game, though.)

As for who's fault it is, the mother is ultimately responsible as it was her card but she apparently didn't have a reason at the time to be suspicious of her son and keep her valuables locked up where he couldn't get to them. I imagine it's a bit different in that household now, which is a bit sad that that breach of trust happened but hopefully with some good parenting discussion things like this won't happen again.

 

[Mortons4ck]

$1400?

Sounds like someone is going to be mowing a lot of lawns this summer...

 

[toy soldier]

a metric fuckton of gold carotts

 

[Timotei]

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Auric]

I really hate to say this, but the kids just thick, and obviously deserved what was coming if he ever got a caution.

Why spend over 1k of money thats not even your own, on a game thats legitimately free.

 

[Marsell]

Why would someone pay for something like that?

I think it is something like a collection addiction mixed with jealousy. People or kids see what other people have on their farms, and they see that the other people have things that had to be bought with real money. The kid gets jealous that he or she doesn't have said "cool" graphic/item, so the kid buys it, and probably buys a few other things that he or she sees that the other people don't have, so that he or she's farm looks "better", showing up the other people.
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And that amount of money for items, it isn't hard to believe that the boy could have racked up that much of a bill. I said last month in one of the (Blank) Vs Zynga threads of the March Mayhem, that I loosely kept track for six months of all the things that my mom said that could be bought on Farmville with real money, and I figured out that the amount, if a person bought all the special items, came out to be well over a 1000 dollars.

But wait, how often do credit card bills get sent out?(I don't have one) I'm guessing each month. Now all those special items I mentioned, the boy wouldn't have been able to buy all of those, because the are usually limited time for some season or holiday of some such. In actuality, there isn't an incredible amount of special items that can be bought each month. So I am coming to the conclusion that this boy stupidly bought a load of duplicates of each item.

What Zynga needs to do, but I know they won't because they are making way too much money on the way they do things now, is that they need stop charging money for special items and make them available to buy with the fake in-game coins earned from the farming, and then charge a subscription fee like MMOs do. They actually said a while back that they were thinking of doing that, except for the not charging money for special items, which would make them more down right money grubbers than they already are.

Still make no goddamn sense
You have to KEEP PAYING to play a mediocre online farming game
I paid $30 for Rune Factory frontier and I can already tell its better AND cheaper

 

[Cracker3011]

And THIS is why I consider Farmville, and Facebook in general, to be evil.

 

[Rosen2012]

If i was that mother, my child would never see day light again. He'd be grounded until he got a job and paid me back every cent. And there would be no presents until then either.

Your birthday, son? No you spent that money already. Christmas? Spent that too. For the next six years.

 

[Rosen2012]

I paid $30 for Rune Factory frontier and I can already tell its better AND cheaper

Hell yes! You want to farm? Buy a harvest moon or Rune Factory game!

 

[LCP]

with 1400 i could start a small farm where im from

 

[Bat Vader]

12-Year-Old Rings Up $1400 Farmville Bill

Just to clarify, why is this in dollars? I'm fairly certain the news report from the Guardian would be in pounds. I understand the majority of the users on this site is American, but you went to all that hassle to change the currency just to appease them? You know that'll really piss off some English people. Including myself. It just shows you really can't be arsed to appease us, instead opting to cop-out and let all your American users avoid spending that two second period of time to work out what that would be in dollars.

I don't think there is really a need to get mad about it.

On Topic: Considering that the boy is 12 I think that what he purchased should be null and void because he was to young to use a credit card. Yes, his mother is legally allowed to use a credit card to purchase things but since Zynga found this out and he is only 12 they should be forced to refund the money.

 

[Sparrow]

12-Year-Old Rings Up $1400 Farmville Bill

Just to clarify, why is this in dollars? I'm fairly certain the news report from the Guardian would be in pounds. I understand the majority of the users on this site is American, but you went to all that hassle to change the currency just to appease them? You know that'll really piss off some English people. Including myself. It just shows you really can't be arsed to appease us, instead opting to cop-out and let all your American users avoid spending that two second period of time to work out what that would be in dollars.

I don't think there is really a need to get mad about it.

Thanks for your insight. Problem sovled. /sarcasm

 

[Bat Vader]

12-Year-Old Rings Up $1400 Farmville Bill

Just to clarify, why is this in dollars? I'm fairly certain the news report from the Guardian would be in pounds. I understand the majority of the users on this site is American, but you went to all that hassle to change the currency just to appease them? You know that'll really piss off some English people. Including myself. It just shows you really can't be arsed to appease us, instead opting to cop-out and let all your American users avoid spending that two second period of time to work out what that would be in dollars.

I don't think there is really a need to get mad about it.

Thanks for your insight. Problem sovled. /sarcasm

I was just trying to help. What is the big deal about how someone writes how much something is in a different form of currency?

 

[Starke]

a metric fuckton of gold carotts

Fucktons, just one reason why the Metric system is superior to the Imperial one.

 

[blankedboy]

A metric fuckton of carrots.

No, you can buy about 20 carrots. FarmVille's Pay-to-get-stuff scheme is INCREDIBLY expensive.