$800 Minecraft Bill Leads to Felony Filing Against Ten-Year-Old

[Andy Chalk]

$800 Minecraft Bill Leads to Felony Filing Against Ten-Year-Old

A ten-year-old Nebraska lad is facing a felony theft charge after racking up an $800 Minecraft bill on his grandmother's credit card.

First things first: I have no idea how anyone could ring up $800 worth of Minecraft stuff. I don't even know if it's possible. But that's the line that police in the town of Lincoln, Nebraska are going with, and so that's how we'll roll along.

According to the police, a 74-year-old woman was contacted by her bank about suspicious activity on her credit card, which they eventually tracked down to her young, Minecraft-loving grandson, who reportedly ran up the huge bill while playing the game online. The bank told her that it would reverse the charges once she filed a police report - and so that's what she did. The police referred the case to the Lancaster County DA's office, and the boy is now facing a felony theft charge.

Kids unintentionally plowing huge charges onto their parents' credit cards is nothing new - I did it back in the early 80s - but it's unusual, and very unfortunate, that the system has this kid facing such serious trouble. Surely there must have been a way to resolve the matter without filing charges, and if not, surely any rational parent or grandparent would opt to eat the bill rather than throw their pre-teen child to the wolves of law enforcement. And yet, apparently not.

And just how does one spend $800 on Minecraft, anyway? I have no doubt that the bill is real but I suspect there's more to it than meets the eye.

Source: KLKN [http://www.klkntv.com/story/23928921/8-year-old-faces-felony-charges]


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[Seydaman]

...When did Minecraft introduce the ability to spend more money than the base purchase?

 

[Aeshi]

How the hell does one spend $800 on Minecraft?!

I mean the game itself is only a few bucks, and it doesn't have any sort of subscription or DLC.

Did he just buy a LOT of copies or something?

 

[Schadrach]

...When did Minecraft introduce the ability to spend more money than the base purchase?

That what I was wondering too...maybe he bought Minecraft for his entire school or something? Or bought a new copy every time he logged in? I have no idea. I can't think of a way to sink that much money into Minecraft.

 

[Church185]

Did Minecraft introduce microtransactions while I wasn't looking? How is this even possible?

Maybe he was buying up Minecraft merchandise online?

 

[Kuilui]

My guess would be he was online and donating money to servers or something. A lot of servers have the ability to donate for ranks and privileges, etc. Even then that kinda money just on minecraft is pretty nuts but he's 10 maybe somebody told him to give a huge donation for something really cool (in a 10 year olds mind of course).

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

It's too vague to really tell what he spent the money on. I mean, Minecraft has a store, but it mostly just diverts you to a Thinkgeek page of the item.

 

[KDR_11k]

My guess would be he was online and donating money to servers or something. A lot of servers have the ability to donate for ranks and privileges, etc. Even then that kinda money just on minecraft is pretty nuts but he's 10 maybe somebody told him to give a huge donation for something really cool (in a 10 year olds mind of course).

Most likely. While MC itself is buy-once-and-keep many specialized private servers are apparently freemium with a heavy pay-to-win bend.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

As a adult Minecraft fan that has spent some of his income on the game & some physical merchandise associated with it, it behooves me to bring up that one would need to buy nearly every bit of licensed Minecraft swag out there to wrack up that kind of bill; possible, but hard for something like that to have gone unnoticed.

Some multiplayer servers charge for use, but unless he's on an obscene number of them, I don't see how that'd do it either

This whole thing sounds immediately fishy to me


Escapist, keep us posted on this s'il vou plait

 

[Smooth Operator]

Did Minecraft introduce microtransactions while I wasn't looking?

They did actually start selling texture packs on 360, but most the kid probably he got scammed by someone with promises of private server access (plenty of those asses around).

Wouldn't really blame granny for her actions either because old people much like children tend to just blindly follow what seemingly important people tell them to do, hopefully the parents have enough sense to provide some insight and prove the kid had no idea what he was doing.

 

[JoJo]

Seems like a waste of time and money bringing in charges in a case like this, better to let his family deal with the punishment rather than wasting public money and leaving a black mark on the poor kid's record. Hopefully someone in authority will see sense.

 

[Synthetica]

Ehm, wait what? Here in the Netherlands, you have a special institute thingie for the punishment of minors, you don't get a criminal record and you have to do community service, tops. How come that's not the case there?

 

[octafish]

Just wanted to say: Excellent picture use on this story, it gave me quite a big smile when I saw it. Better safe than sorry, Starkweather was just a kid too, best to lock him up rather than give him a stern warning and dismiss the charges.

 

[Jamieson 90]

How does a ten year old get hold of an adult's credit card/details and then use it without notice.

How does a ten year old rack up a $800 bill over a month without anyone noticing?

Wouldn't you be concerned if your ten year old was so obsessed with a game to the level that they would spend so much? Where were the adults in this entire situation and how did they let it get so far?

And lastly why the fuck would you file a police report against one of your own relatives, and a ten year old one at that? Especially in America where the police look for absolutely any excuse to put you away for good; why do you think they tell you to say nothing until your lawyer get's there?

I feel bad for the kid, yes he was stupid but he's 10! I was stupid when I was ten but thankfully I had good parents who ensured I didn't fuck up too badly. In fact I remember my brother racking up a £70 phone bill for Phantasy Star Online back when we were using dial up, and that's as far as it got because my parents were on the ball, and no they didn't notify the police; they did what any sane parent would do which was punish him and then dock his pocket money for a few months until he paid it off.

 

[RicoADF]

Ehm, wait what? Here in the Netherlands, you have a special institute thingie for the punishment of minors, you don't get a criminal record and you have to do community service, tops. How come that's not the case there?

You forget that while Netherlands (and most of the EU), Australia and most of the western world are beyond this the Us is about 50 years behind the rest of us, still clinging onto punishment over rehabilitation or common sense. It's all about money since the jails are privately owned.

 

[Nielas]

Ehm, wait what? Here in the Netherlands, you have a special institute thingie for the punishment of minors, you don't get a criminal record and you have to do community service, tops. How come that's not the case there?

Note that the source article linked is just four sentences and shorter than the write up here. Thus it probably sounds more sensational than it really is.

The case was referred to juvenile court since the kid is a minor and most likely the charges will be dropped after a prosecutor reviews them. The grandma filed a police report (probably before she knew that her grandson was responsible) so the police processed the case as they would any fraud case. A prosecutor will look at the case and decide that there is nothing to prosecute there and drop the charges.

 

[AldUK]

When I was 15, I managed to get hold of my dad's card and spend £250 on an adult webcam website. He went berserk at me and it took about a year until he finally stopped bringing it up, we were never well-off so it really was a massive amount, but I just didn't think at the time, blinded as I was by teenage hormones.

This kid is 10 and it's a lot more innocent, I wish my charge had been on a computer game instead of something as embarrassing as a wank-site. I can't believe the law are even getting involved in this. Ground him, take away his gaming rights for 6 months, a year even. But prosecuting? What can they do anyway against a 10 year old? Throw him in the slammer? I know it's America, but there has to be limits.

 

[niktzv]

Ehm, wait what? Here in the Netherlands, you have a special institute thingie for the punishment of minors, you don't get a criminal record and you have to do community service, tops. How come that's not the case there?

Note that the source article linked is just four sentences and shorter than the write up here. Thus it probably sounds more sensational than it really is.

The case was referred to juvenile court since the kid is a minor and most likely the charges will be dropped after a prosecutor reviews them. The grandma filed a police report (probably before she knew that her grandson was responsible) so the police processed the case as they would any fraud case. A prosecutor will look at the case and decide that there is nothing to prosecute there and drop the charges.

I'd say calling it sensational is being generous. The article says he could be charged with a felony. This headline implies he differently has been.