Dad Blames Microsoft for Son's Xbox Live Spending Spree

[teebeeohh]

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?

I'm guessing everyone who played DOOM waited until they were 18 to play?

no, but nobody i know had parents who allowed them to play doom(or quake, which was my poison of choice), forcing us to play it when our parents were not home. you can't stop your children playing games they really want to (i imagine it's a lot easier today since almost everything you play on a console is recorded in some way) but you should at least regulate what they play at home, the same way you would with other media.
and children shouldn't play online MP.

 

[Siberian Relic]

You're responsible for your child. That's what makes you the parent.

"He didn't realize it was costing real money...."

That's a lie, pops. The default excuse from a kid--and especially a boy--who's been caught doing something stupid/wrong/dangerous is almost always: "I didn't know!"

 

[synobal]

I call BS on this, it took the parent 6 months to realize that his card was being used to buy stuff on xbox live? Stuff he didn't buy? I think the dad bought all this stuff and now 6 months later he's having buyers remorse or perhaps is having financial trouble and realizes he can't really afford the charges now. So he's getting his son to play the fall guy, no one takes 6 months to realize that there are strange charges on their credit card.

 

[Starke]

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.

I think that was supposed to be "realize".

Anyway, on topic, I love these stories, they pop up like clockwork, and they're equally ridiculous every time...

 

[Worgen]

Well, hes technically not wrong about blaming ms for this. They have made it very easy to buy things and as far as I know there is no way to take you'r credit card off an account unless your updating it to a new card. Hell, I've heard about them charging expired cards before. I think Jim Sterling had a rant about that.

Most services do require some kind of password before you actually buy something so its rather understandable if he assumed the 360 would have something similar.

Although I have no idea how the hell the kid managed to spend over 1k on cod and fifa.

Not sure where ya heard that, but I just checked, I went to my XBL account page, went to my payment options and clicked remove on my card, it asked me if I was sure and when I clicked yes that was the end of that. Took about 10 seconds total.

OT: The blame rests entirely on the dad, its an expensive lesson on how to be a better parent, but he desperately needed it obviously.

Guess they finally changed it then, I haven't really used my 360 in over a year. I'm like two big updates out of date on the stupid thing.

How exactly is it an expensive lesson in being a better parent?

 

[The Random One]

And I agree. The first time I bought something on Live I was appalled at how easy it was. There are none of the checks any online retailer should have. For the sake of convenience I have to choose between entering my credit card number every time I want to make a purchase, sticking to prepaid cards that defeat the point of online purchases, or leaving my credit card number there at the mercy of any script kiddy who can hack my hotmail account. One of the many reasons I won't stick with Microsoft after this gen.

 

[Keepitclean]

In this case it sounds like the child is a manipulative little shit. I highly doubt that he didn't know it was real money that he was spending. The father didn't know what he was getting himself into and his son took advantage.

This isn't Microsoft's fault. This could have been easily avoided by the father but his son took advantage of his father's trust.

 

[chadachada123]

I...I don't think that it's even possible to spend over 1000 pounds on DLC for two games.

Can someone explain how that's possible, at all?

Also, I second the notion that the kid is a lying shithead, and that the father is an idiot for not checking out his billing statements.

 

[1337mokro]

I blame you for:

Not teaching your son that money is earned with work.

Not teaching your son the value of a dollar.

Giving your twelve year old kid access to a creditcard.

Not monitoring his spending more closely.

Not enabling the ParentalControls on your Xbox360.

Not raising your kid properly.


I blame Microsoft:

For selling consoles to the obviously mentally challenged.


Playing the blame game is fun.

 

[Rad Party God]

Stupid parent is stupid.

Microsoft's reps are right, the kid shouldn't be playing COD in the first place and then, how in the fucking fuck did he spend so much in just "COD and FIFA"?, did he bought every single map pack for COD since Modern Warfare 2?.

The stupid parent is the only one to blame here, not Microsoft.

 

[Erttheking]

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.

 

[lotanerve]

Do you need a credit card to be on XBL now? I thought you could buy membership/point cards at your local Walmart (or the European equivalent) to prevent this. At least you can buy iTunes cards to buy stuff without having your credit card on file. Don't see why you can't do the do the same for XBL.

 

[RaNDM G]

Should have bought retail cards. Cheaper than charging credit and would have kept his kid from buying crap he doesn't need.

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

It really is kind of manipulative of Microsoft when you pay for a Gold Account. I signed up for a one month trial sometime last year, and it took me a couple days to realize it was set to automatically renew it afterwards. I had to go to the website and get some phone numbers to call up an employee to have them remove my card from automatic renewal.

There is literally NO option in the Xbox to do this, and their website does not allow you to make this decision. It's a very bad way of handling subscriptions, although I am aware that plenty of sites do this. However, I think this is the first time I had to call somebody up in order to "uncheck" the renewal box.

...you know, this reminds me, I have a funny feeling we never did that after I bought Gold for a year back in November. I should go and look into it. Yo guys, it's been more than 6 months, and since it was paid up in one go I wouldn't be seeing any money changing hands until the renewal happened. So you can see it IS actually easy to get caught off guard.

Anyways, the only thing that really shocks me is how many people are surprised (or offended) that the kid was playing Call of Duty.

As someone said "did everyone wait til they were 18 for DOOM?" Well, I sure didn't. I was playing Resident Evil in high school, too. Hell, my mom enjoyed watching me play it because she likes zombies and horror movies. She's also a big fan of DOOM and did actually pick up the DOOM collectors edition set of discs one year from a Walmart somewhere cause she knew I had played the games when I was younger. Of course, I was in my 20's by then, so this was more of a happy surprise than anything else.

But yeah, "just saiyan."

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

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.

;P

----------

But yeah, sorry Mr. Dad, you can't use the "he didn't know it cost money" excuse when it clearly states a dollar amount to buy points. And if he's so young that he doesn't know what $ means, then he shouldn't be gaming without a little supervision (and especially not MW3, seriously? I mean, seriously?).

Microsoft is not your babysitter, pops. Hopefully you've learned that, now.

 

[dagens24]

I gave my child and incredibly sophisticated piece of technology without having any concept of what it is capable of doing and then he did something with that technology that I don't like and that is YOUR fault! Rabble rabble rabble!

 

[TAdamson]

I'm going to actually take the father's side here.

It's not unreasonable to expect a password lock on your credit card to be opt out rather than opt in.

All these childless teenagers and twenty something shouting "bad parenting" are just indulging in the reflexive usual squawking in defence of their hobby.

He's certainly guilty of carelessness but it's not like Microsoft can't just reset that account and offer at least a partial refund. That would be sensible customer service/PR on their part.

 

[xyrafhoan]

I'm sure that the dad probably set up financial information on the XBox for his son for XBL Gold, but didn't realize there were any security measures to further protect his credit card, because of course his son would not show his dad what kind of security features are on an XBox. Or he would be like my parents, who use the same, easy passwords for everything. On the other hand, the fiscal irresponsibility of not noticing unauthorized purchases after the first bill boggles my mind. There is no way that anyone with a credit card would fail to notice purchases they didn't make if they were really concerned about their money. At one point I tried to sneak a payment to one of my MMOs with my mom's credit card, and after she saw the payment to a company in California on her card, she called the company to block her card from ever being used again. The credit ban even applied to a card under my name, because it shared the account. If the dad were smart about protecting his funds, he would have called Microsoft long ago to resolve unwanted purchases. At the very least, even if he didn't get a refund, he would have been given steps to clamp down on his son's purchasing power.

 

[Epona]

Seriously?

Be a parent. I'm really sick of listening to so many parents' excuses these days. They throw their kid(s) in front of a TV, tell them to entertain themselves but the moment anything goes wrong or in a direction they don't like, rather than take responsibility for their laziness they blame anyone and everyone else. Sick, just sick.

LRN 2 PARENT

LEARN TO SPELL.

You aren't sick of hearing about stories like this or you wouldn't have even clicked on thread, much less posted in it.

 

[Epona]

Anyways, the only thing that really shocks me is how many people are surprised (or offended) that the kid was playing Call of Duty.

As someone said "did everyone wait til they were 18 for DOOM?" Well, I sure didn't. I was playing Resident Evil in high school, too. Hell, my mom enjoyed watching me play it because she likes zombies and horror movies. She's also a big fan of DOOM and did actually pick up the DOOM collectors edition set of discs one year from a Walmart somewhere cause she knew I had played the games when I was younger. Of course, I was in my 20's by then, so this was more of a happy surprise than anything else.

But yeah, "just saiyan."

Yeah, none of these people saying "why is a kid playing COD" waited to played M rated games nor did they wait to watch R rated movies or listen to CD's with explicit lyrics. Bunch of phonies I say. They claim to hate it when things like this happen but deep down they can't wait for the opportunity to bash parents. I'll bet most of them aren't parents and have no concept of parenthood.