Kid Rings Up $1700 Xbox Live Bill, Mom Blames Microsoft

[Jfswift]

To be fair she is working crazy hours, having two jobs. That's stressful and it's easy to overlook something like small payments every once in a while. I'm willing to be most of the people posting here have regular 40 hour a week jobs (or at least have a significant amount of freetime on their hands).

 

[DasDestroyer]

"It is ridiculous to allow someone of his age to make payments without any checks being done."

Exactly, I mean what kind of mother would give her kid her credit card number and- oh wait, she's referring to Microsoft?

I'm sorry but I have to say that I just had to slam my head on my keyboard and begin to cry when I read your comment.

What sort of cry? Rage, laughter, sadness?

 

[D Moness]

Can you imagine how many checks they'd need to send out saying "You SURE you have the money to buy this? You SURE you're not spedning too much?"

Something like windows Xp , Every time you started a program: You sure you want to start this programm?(well both microsoft but i will throw my x-box out of the window if they do that).

 

[Zechnophobe]

Damn you Porn Website! My son has spent 200,000 US Dollars on you! I gave him my credit card when he wanted to buy that Sub machine gun, but how was I to know he'd use it for other things as well? He was in Cat Painting Mode, he can't focus on finances too!


(... too much?).

 

[Meathands]

Whilst I appreciate that the thrust of this thread is whether responsibility lies with child, parent or Microsoft, I feel cheated of a spot of info.

How the buggering fuck do you spend that much money on Live? That's got to be an HD movie every night and arcade games on top of that. Who is this child? Because my money's on it being the kid from Xmen 2 who doesn't sleep, or a child wondering if it's possible to make the points counter run out of digits.

 

[FallenRainbows]

"Sadly, nobody has figured out yet how to make parents automatically default to "pay attention to what your kids are doing.""

You know what? Fuck that.

MS have been charging me for XBL on a monthly-base, without asking permission and giving the impression that I was only going to pay for a month before being asked again, and the only way to cancel this little fucking scheme is to go out of my way to call them.

I HAVE TO CALL THEM TO GET THEM TO STOP TAKING MONEY FROM ME.

How about the fucktits call me?

Woodsey's 'bout to get medi-fucking-eval.

It's in the T&C bro. Like most subscription services (See WoW)

In WoW when I buy a 2 month card, it gives me 2 months. No more, no less, and it doesn't continue charging after the 2 months.

Also, in WoW its pretty painless to cancel your subscription. Its an absolute pain in the ass to cancel your xbox live subscription. If feels like its specifically designed to piss you off just enough so you'll just leave it and deal.

This is not a good thing. I don't care if they say its what they can do, its fucking bullshit, and the fact that people just lie down and take it is terrifying.

Get a gold membership card then?

 

[jebussaves88]

Whilst I agree that a lot of the fault lies with the mother and son in this case, I do think that the option to save credit card details on a console is a bad move to start with. Since when did shopping on the internet not at least warrant an obligatory card number entry. Less effort than going to the shops after all, and maybe a lot of this misspending won't happen. Not Microsoft's fault, but I think this "convenience" of linking credit cards to online accounts is not such a smart move.

 

[Popido]

But the Xbaw live is designed to do that!

Meh. The mother probably thought that shes just paying for the connection and had no idea they where selling virtual crap over the lines to her kid. Thats the gaming industry to you, adjust to it or it will DIE!

...
[Explain why me mad/laughing][Short story of my life][Comment how they should be killed for our amusement][Flex penis]

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Why does everyone in this world think that businesses should have to take responsibility for the things they do? Microsoft exists to make money by developing and selling hardware and software, they do not exist to babysit your child. In fact Microsoft is being pretty nice as business goes; they allow for parental controls that limit what the Xbox live account can and cannot do. They do not have to include these features.

So, saying "These companies should take some responsibility. They take advantage of vulnerable people" Is absolutely ridiculous! Every human being has a brain and is capable of independent thought. If you wish to enjoy a product sold by a company it is your! responsibility to ensure it does not cause problems.

Now for fuck sakes, use your damn brain before you complain and make yourself look like an idiot.

 

[Bloodstain]

Seriously, what's with all those mothers blaming Microsoft for their sons' wrongdoing lately...is this the new hip thing to do? Blame Microsoft?

I hope MS won't be as kind as the last time. They deserve to get their money. It's not their fault the mother is unable to pay attention to her kid.
I hate people like her.
"What?! MY child has done something wrong? This can't be! Look at him, he feels so bad. It must be the company's fault!"

EDIT:

Damn you Porn Website! My son has spent 200,000 US Dollars on you! I gave him my credit card when he wanted to buy that Sub machine gun, but how was I to know he'd use it for other things as well? He was in Cat Painting Mode, he can't focus on finances too!


(... too much?).

No, exactly right.

 

[Canid117]

Way to spoil your brat you dumb [insert expletive here].

 

[the_tramp]

Am I the only person who is thinking "£1082 ($1739)", woah how the exchange rate has fallen. I work in UK/US tax (i.e. deal with the conversion rates daily) and it still annoys me that I didn't change a load of money into dollars a couple of years ago when it was £1:$2 and exchange it back when it was £1:$1.44 last May.

Just me? Fine... I'm sad and I know it.

 

[RatRace123]

Can we please have mothers stop blaming Microsoft? It's quickly getting old.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

... how did he spend that much money on XBL? Does he own every Game on Demand? Is he set on memberships for XBL for the next 10+ years? I don't get how he did that.

 

[Susan Arendt]

While id hate to be sexist, many women are bad with money, and this sort of reinforces that notion.

If you didn't want to be sexist, you shouldn't have been. While I certainly don't argue that this woman is a blithering idiot, let's take her stupidity on an individual basis, shall we, and not as an indication of the gender as a whole.

Eh, its one of those things that data seems to support.
From both personal and statiscal experiences.
Like did you know the average woman spends $25,000 on shoes in theyer lifetime?
And an additional $6117 on handbags a year? ((from the money translation of £4000))

I dont want to be sexist, really D: And im sorry if its offencive to females.
But its what the numbers show. And im a man of science.

Well, go right ahead and cite your sources. Then, while you're at it, rustle up some data on how much men spend on any of their interests, and we can do a compare/contrast. Oh, and make sure you're assessing things like percentage of income, marital status, and the like.

Plenty of people, of both genders, are stupid with money. And plenty of people of both genders are great with it.

 

[Section Crow]

what the hell did he spend that money on?

anyway the kid MUST have known the concept of money by the age of 11 especially if the single parent is tight on money, this just shows that her parenting skills are seriously lacking or the kid realised what he was doing and decided to take the easy way out by just crying to his mum rather then taking responsibility.

funny, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree eh?

 

[VivaciousDeimos]

Whilst I appreciate that the thrust of this thread is whether responsibility lies with child, parent or Microsoft, I feel cheated of a spot of info.

How the buggering fuck do you spend that much money on Live?

This is what I was wondering too. I stared at my game library thinking I could by every add-on, map pack, extra outfit, extra character, whathaveyou for every one of them and still not spend that much. He must have been getting a hell of a lot of full games off Arcade. But even then, wow that's a lot.

 

[Temah]

And once again, a parent buys a console/game, ignores what their child does while playing it, something goes wrong, and the industry/game/company is EVIL...

 

[New Troll]

This is like a mother buying milk at the convenient store and just not noticing that television her son put in the basket until after she got home. Greedy store's fault for letting her pay for it when all she wanted was the milk.