Eight-Year-Old Girl Blows $1400 on Smurfberries

[SinisterGehe]

Since when parents were no longer responsible over the actions of their children? Was there some new proposition passed somewhere and I happened to miss it?

I think this quote of me, quoted by me, gives my point over this subject...

Honestly, parents... Please!!! Teach you children, mind what they are doing! Don't just slap a console on their hands and walk back to the sofa to watch you soap. I know kids are stressful, but they are under your responsibility, they need to be sculptured to resemble you and your values and views, they might chip a bit or change during the winds of time, but they are still part of you...

 

[ryanxm]

facepalm

 

[Jawz 014]

Wait, so she didn't enter a credit card and the bill was sent to her?

That's bullshit, this is one where I'm willing to blame the game and not the parent.

It is a game made for fucking four year olds where you can rack up thousands of dollars of charges without the parent entering a credit card or giving permission at any stage?

Fuck that, I hope the game gets the book thrown at them in court.

Agreed

 

[Craig Barner]

Then they suffer the consequences

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

"She was given a one-time refund when she brought it to Apple's attention"

This part impressed me. I bought GTA Chinatown Wars on my iPod Touch, but first had the Lite version, then upgraded it, when it still showed the "Lite" banner on the pic, I thought I thought i had to go downnload the full version, which i did. But i accidentally paid twice. After an email explaining what happened, Apple actually refunded me $12. But this is... a LOT more.

Apple's customer service here should really be commended.

I'll commend apple when they offer to fix my ipod earphone jack for $20 and not $125dollars. Since a place in town can do it for that much. Or free since I've been using the tin foil trick with them for a while. Its just they can charge a bit much sometimes.

OT:I gotta say I'd never trust my children like that, credit card on a system they can use at anytime? Yeah no shot.

 

[solidstatemind]

BLEH, brain fart, apparently those words don't mean what I think they mean. I thought apathy had more of a negative connotation to it/was an antonym or something. Learn something new every day.

You were probably thinking of enmity, which means 'hatred'.

OT: I blame Zynga for all this micropayment bullshit. Back when I was in the throes of a really heinous Mafia Wars addiction, I actually almost reached for my wallet to buy their commodotized currency. Fortunately, I caught myself and didn't start down that path of stupidity.

I'm usually on the side of the game companies, but this time, I think Capcom is clearly in the wrong here: a game designed for children/pre-teens that actually has an item that costs $99 real dollars is some serious bullshit: you're not going to save up that kind of scratch from your allowance, ffs-- and it seems patently ridiculous that Capcom would think that the target audience of the game would be able to afford such a charge was a reasonable possibility.

EDIT: wait... doesn't the price just further reaffirm that long-standing suspicion that Smurfberries were a poorly hidden analogy for drugs?

 

[JochemDude]

I read about this a few month's ago, a girl had spent over 50000 Euro (About 70000 USD) on this game. Why because the first version had A FUCKING FUNCTION TO SPAM THE '1000 BERRIES FOR 415 Euro' combine that with slow internet and you got a recipe for disaster. That is just unacceptable I think that at the very least Capcom should never be allowed to release another App 'cause whoever brings out a game like this is just a lowlife thief on mass scale.

 

[drunken_munki]

LOL, people are crying 'blame the parents' for not watching over their kids like flys on shit, or 'blame the game publisher' for charging ridiculous scam prices. Yeah the arguments are kinda valid but you are missing the bigger picture here. Blame the format and system, in this case 'Itunes'. A monetary transaction can occur even from within an application? And make a charge directly to the Itunes account? Even with no valid credit card and credentials entered? You're a moron for buying into such a diabolical system. Stop throwing your money away at these toy-gadget peddlers (Apple).

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

It does seem a bit odd that a game ostensibly for children would charge $19 for a bucket of snowflakes or $99 for a wagon of smurfberries,

... is it me, or does that look like a typo? Are we sure it's a hundred dollars, and not, say $.99 (ie one dollar) per wagon of smurfberries? Cause, 99 cents is a way more common cost for downloadable in-game items. I'm just saying, are we sure the OP had that right? Anyone want to check?

I don't. I wanna go drinking. Can someone who cares more check this out?

 

[DTWolfwood]

Fair enough me thinks. Not gonna side with anyone, but it should be looked into a bit.

 

[MrJohnson]

you know you can limit the amount of cash you can use on your ipad? i would never give my kid an ipad with no spending limit. i would probably not give my kid an ipad in the first place.

Exactly. It's much too expensive to just give to a small child. A DS, or something like that is acceptable, given the general absence of internet on it, as well as the much smaller price tag.
Honestly, who just gives a child a $500 piece of electronics? It's completely irresponsible.

I think it's more irresponsible to have a child who has no concept of money at AGE 8! That is ridiculous.

 

[DevilWolf47]

This is bullshit, I think it should be a law that you should have to enter the last four digits of your credit card for verification into a game before it lets you buy things if that game is marketed to children

Considering the fact that the bill came from email, the mother NEVER gave the game itself her card, and it is made for 5 year olds means this was not the mothers fault but the game's

The fact that it charges $99 FUCKING DOLLARS for "smurfberries" lead me to believe that the game was created solely to make things like this happen, I agree with her when she says it preys on children.

That is a little--
...fuck it. That's fucking insane. $99 for an in-game item? What does it do? Unlock graphic sex scenes and medical scenes showing in extreme details how Smurfs reproduce? Do you get one kilo of smack for every smurfberry purchased? What is the fucking point?!

 

[2xDouble]

I understand parents can't watch their kids 24/7, but shouldn't it have raised some questions as to why the app needed a password to download something inside the game? And again when the password was required multiple times? It IS the parents' responsibility to have at least a working knowledge of things their children play with and how it might hurt them, Video Games included.

That being said, anything more than $10 for an in-game item is plain and simple robbery. That in a game catered to very young children is downright exploitation at best and extortion at worst. They are both at fault here. Capcom, I am disappoint; you know better than this. At least you gave her a refund.

 

[D Moness]

Perhaps it's an overreaction, but really I'm beginning to think that instead of chasing these people around it might just be time to ban all cash shops or whatever. Doing it piecemeal is just going to result in the industry adapting to find other ways to scam, just like they did with the phone problems, until someone just puts their foot down and axes the entire thing.

That would kill all F2P mmo's since they use this kind of payment to pay for the servers. I think they should kill kash shops in games aimed at games like this (or the hello kitty mmo out there). This smurfs game just smells/sounds like a scam too me

 

[JoJo]

$99 for a wagon of smurfberries

please tell me this is a typo its just impossible for a gmae like this to have items that almost cost 100$!
OT
shouldnt the parents monitor their kids? or shouldnt kids ask PERMISSION to use their parents credit card? this is the second story this month! HOW STUPID ARE AMERICAN PARENTS?!

You think parents have the time to give their kids 24/7 supervision? That they're going to sit watching exactly what their child is doing on an electronic toy every single minute of the day? I think this is a genuine case of technology being badly designed, possibly with the intent of mischarging, I mean almost $100 for virtual berries?

Also the child didn't actually have access to the credit card, rather only the itunes account password.

 

[ninjajoeman]

How can children even hold ipads for long periods of time? I never really got that. This is like giving your 4 year old kid a laptop.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

At least the mother didn't ignore the bills for 6 months like that kid who racked up thousands in XBL charges.

Wow.

Do these smurf berries perform fellatio or something?

Have you ever had Smurfberries? Last Summer my friends and I went into the woods and got absolutely wasted on Smurfberries. I mean we were well and truly Smurfed out of our Smurfing minds.

Good times.

They're also good in Pies, and as engine coolant.

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

I can see how it took the same thing happening twice in one week for attention to be grabbed by people with some authority. Nice to know that if we spread the serial killings over a long enough time, nobody that can stop it will notice.

I still think that if parents want to blame anyone it should be themselves, they are ultimately the ones responsible for the kids' interaction with the world bigger than their local playground. Speaking as a minor, if my parents would like to know anything i have done online(i don't think they want to know /some/ of that stuff) they are free to come ask, or watch, no promises it will be things they necessarily like though.

 

[Stevepinto3]

It does seem a bit odd that a game ostensibly for children would charge $19 for a bucket of snowflakes or $99 for a wagon of smurfberries

"A bit odd"? That's not odd, that's absolutely insane to charge that much money for an item in a kid's iPhone game. Hell, that's about as much as buying Dragon Age Origins and all the DLC. There is no way they can possibly justify that cost, they have to be praying that ignorant kids will do exactly what this one did, just on a smaller scale that could slip by. No parent is going to look at that and say, "Yes, I will pay $100 to get my child virtual smurfberries".