Dad Blames Microsoft for Son's Xbox Live Spending Spree

[EvilMaggot]

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?

edit: do not quote this unless you bothered to read the rest of this thread

Derp! xD nvm me la la la la

 

[Sunrider]

Daily Mail. <---Stopped reading there.

Parents... Do not let Microsoft babysit your child. That is all.

And this applies, more times than I can possibly say.
The dad deserves it for not knowing what the fuck his child was doing, and the kid deserves a good slap to the face for being dumber than a bag of bricks. I'm dumb as at least half a bag of bricks, and even I had at least some semblance of knowledge about money when I was 12. Dial-up internet, anyone?

 

[Musiclly enhanced]

for once im very proud of microsoft to say "piss off your son is a moron" Also that his son shouldn't have been playing CoD.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Oh sure, blame the kid for not knowing buying stuff costs money! Cue "adults should be aware of what their kids are doing rant".

 

[cbrichar]

I dunno guys - as a brand new father myself, I personally blame Steam entirely for the fact that my kid's college education fund is quickly going up in smoke. But... SUCH DEALS!!

 

[Zefar]

Even having a low paying job should get you more than $1000 a month. So this happened in the course of 6 months and with that the money just isn't that much after all. He also didn't spend everything on the same day. I really doubt it was the kid fault for him having no money at the end.

Still over $1000 on COD and Fifa? How in the hell does he do that?

 

[Reyold]

Is the child retarded? What kind of 12 year old doesn't understand the concept of money?

Ghera told the Daily Mail.

Oh, but of course he's a Daily Mail reader. Daily Mail readers don't believe in the concept of "parents do the parenting". They want companies and the government to do it for them (and then complain about the "nanny state" when they do it in a way they don't like).

Agreed. The irresponsibility of parents who let their kids play CoD is probably at least half the reason there are lawmakers trying to stop minors from buying violent games.

I know others have already said it, but the dad really should have been looking at his bank statements.

 

[sethisjimmy]

"He didn't realize it was costing real money," Ghera told the Daily Mail.

Bullshit. It clearly shows you how much the points cost, and gets you to confirm that purchase. The Father is just blind to the kid's bull because everyone wants to think their kid is a little angel.

We'll thats apart of the problem, What are "points"? If you didn't know that microsoft called money "points", I'm sure some problems like these could be eliminated, but Microsoft doesn't really care, theres a reason why they are infact called "points", it's because they want to disassociate in your mind that you are spending money, so that when you have money on your account and you want a DLC for 100 points or whatever, you aren't thinking you are spending 9.99.

Well my point was that yes, they are called points, but there is a specific moment when you are purchasing said points where the screen clearly shows you that you are spending actual real world money, and asks you to confirm that you want to spend that money. Also yeah, a part of the point system is to dissociate money with the points, but I think it's primary function is to suck money out of people through the disproportionate cost of things vs the amount of points you can buy. You always end up with a little extra points than you need, thus they make more money.

 

[TJC]

Seriously, when did parents turn into the same idiots their kids are?
When I was a kid if I'd somehow blew several hundred dollars they would've blamed me and only me (and rightly so) not the seller who was just doing his or her job.
Then again, they were smart enough to not give me any access to such obscene amounts of money :/

 

[Something Amyss]

I hate to just drop blame on the parents, but "I didn't realise what I was doing with my credit card when I put it on file for monthly charges!" Is REALLY dumb and NOT an excuse.

 

[Something Amyss]

but there is a specific moment when you are purchasing said points where the screen clearly shows you that you are spending actual real world money

Which point is that, precisely?

 

[DJ_DEnM]

Ghera entered his credit card details into Xbox Live in order to pay the monthly subscription fee, but he didn't release that the service automatically retains your credit card details for later purchases.

Sorry but shouldn't that be "realize"?

The correct spelling is realise
The American spelling is realize.

He still did spell it release, not realise.

 

[kasperbbs]

Not sure how xlive works, but i don't remember being that stupid when i was 12, perhaps that kid just spent the money without thinking, either way MS probably wont do anything unless they get a lot of bad pr. By the way, whwt the hell was he buying for these 2 games to spend £1,150, i don't remember cod releasing so many damned map packs.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

but there is a specific moment when you are purchasing said points where the screen clearly shows you that you are spending actual real world money

Which point is that, precisely?

When you are buying the points. It says, flat-out, that 400 MSP costs $5, 800 costs $10, and so on. Different values in the UK, I'm sure, but it's the same thing. In order to buy that the kid didn't know he was spending real money, you'd have to believe that he somehow managed to select the proper number of points, while not seeing the money value on the same thing he is selecting in order to purchase those points.

 

[sageoftruth]

All I have to say is, here's yet another reason for me not to have kids.

 

[Random Fella]

Ghera entered his credit card details into Xbox Live in order to pay the monthly subscription fee, but he didn't release that the service automatically retains your credit card details for later purchases.

Sorry but shouldn't that be "realize"?

The correct spelling is realise
The American spelling is realize.

He still did spell it release, not realise.

Oh, alright, didn't notice that

 

[Celi]

It certainly isn't MS's fault, but I'm leaning toward blaming the kid more than his father. It's much too clear about how much money points cost for a 12-year-old not to know what he was doing. Really, this feigning ignorance was always my number one tactic for getting away with stuff, especially at that age (then I'd be outraged when my parents thought I was an idiot). Still, the father should have gotten a clearer idea how all that worked, and put parental controls on the account if he didn't trust his son not to abuse the card. His own ignorance certainly doesn't warrant compensation from Microsoft.

 

[medv4380]

Microsoft responded to the report, pointing out that the price of downloadable content is clearly stated during the purchasing process. The company failed to note that, as a 12-year-old, Nik shouldn't have been playing Call of Duty in the first place, but it did mention that children's XBL accounts are automatically restricted.

It appears that you do not understand the purpose of a Rating System. The M rating is to inform the parents of the content and judge for themselves if their child can handle it. It is not an AO rating which implies that they might be committing a crime like aiding in the delinquency of a Minor if they let a child play it. M is equal to an R rating which basically means if your parents say it's ok then it's ok.

MS really should have something in there to confirm that the person using the XBox is actually the person who owns the account before charges are committed to the account. My Amazon service on my PS3 asks for my Pin code even though I'm authorized my PS3 to log into my account. Helps prevent a repair man from coming in and running up a PPV bill while you're away. They also should flag account with 1k activity in a week as possibly hacked and lock the account down. It shouldn't have continued for very long if MS was being responsible.

The Father should also have considered looking into locking the system down, but this is the kid of risk you take when you give a kid an account that has purchase power. The system really should have prompted him, but a tech savy kid could probably have worked around it too.

 

[srm79]

Am I the only one curious as to what the kid bought? I mean really, what can you do with that kind of money. Anyway, the Dad made an account and let the kid run wild with it. His fault, not microsoft. And I'm a little torn about kids that are 12 playing violent games like that, so I say it comes down to the judgement of the parents and it's up to them if they think that they can handle it, but they should make a choice and not be wishy washy about it. Only let your kid play it if you think he can handle it. I would highly recommend not letting them play online though, or if they do, making it so that everyone is muted and only friends can send you messages.

My young son has a PSN account. The PS3 is set up to require the password every time he logs on (it doesn't remember it), and I have the password. He doesn't. No bank card details are put on it either. When he's online, I'm always there to monitor the situation. I use a half decent pair of gaming headphones that work with the dual output thingy in the PS3, meaning that other players voice chat doesn't come through the TV speakers. The mic is muted, the chat volume it muted and he understands the consequences if I ever so much as suspect he's trying to sneak them on. He can usually finish in the top 4 or 5 in games of Battlefield 3 though (no BBFC* rating, unlike CoD), and I've taught him to play for the team, and not just himself - he's got almost as many ace squad ribbons as I do now I think. Not the typical pre-pubescent urchin that you encounter online.

Yeah, FPS games are violent for sure. On the other hand, I grew up watching various cartoon characters devise ever more violent and creative ways to try and kill their nemeses, and you know what? I've yet to hit anyone over the head with a hammer or attempt to drop an anvil on anyone. It's not just the content of the game that's the issue (although some stuff like GTA is still waaaaay off limits to him), but what we as parent do to educate our children about what they are seeing.

The dad in the OP is completely at fault, no argument. There is allowing your child to share your interests, and then there is doing what this arse did and let MS "babysit" for him. Assuming he's being straight up about not knowing for SIX FUCKING MONTHS that his card was being hit up...

*BBFC: British Board of Film Classification, who until last week were the ones who issued the legally binding age restriction for games in the UK. Oddly, BF3 (my copy anyway) only has the PEGI rating.

 

[sethisjimmy]

but there is a specific moment when you are purchasing said points where the screen clearly shows you that you are spending actual real world money

Which point is that, precisely?

You mean like at what point does it tell you that? Well I buy points often enough from there, but I checked my Xbox just to be sure. You go to your account and select add points, and then a list of the available increments of points, and right next to them, their price in dollars (or whatever currency, in my case dollars)

Once you select the points you want, it gets you to confirm the purchase, and shows you what you are about to buy, how much it costs, AND how you are paying: in my case it says VISA and shows the last 4 digits of my credit card. At the bottom it says "plus tax" if that wasn't enough.

Throughout this whole process to the right it explains that microsoft points is a value system where you purchase value for your account to redeem digital content.

I find it pretty hard to believe a 12 year old could mistake all that.