Be carefull with your Xbox live account if you have kids

[Ginger Tea]

http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com...mums-card.html

A boy has decimated his mother’s debit card, amassing debts of more than £1000 on Xbox LIVE.

11 year-old Brendan Jordan of Strood, Kent, eventually totted up a bill of £1,082.52 for Xbox LIVE games and accessories – apparently without realising that it was all being charged to his mum’s card. The lady herself, single parent Dawn Matthews, had previously used the card to purchase an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription for her son, but was unaware that the card details would be then stored on the Xbox 360.

“When I put my card details in 18 months ago I thought it was just for his membership to play online with his friends,” she tells the Daily Mail.

“I work two jobs just to look after my family and pay the bills so I cannot afford all these extortionate charges.”

Read "I can't afford my child's spending habbits." Microsoft didn't start taking money out willy nilly, he was buying stuff via live, just like you can't blamb your mobile company due to your childs high phone bill.

“A thousand pounds isn't that much to people like Bill Gates, but for a single mum it is a lot of money that I don't have.”

All of which is rather failing to wash with Microsoft, who highlight the Xbox 360’s various parental controls which exist precisely so that parents can keep an eye on their kids’ playing and spending habits.

Bill Gates bank ballance is irrelevant, for the rest see above and use the parental guards next time.

Ms. Matthews is not satisfied with the response, though, and thinks that Microsoft is at least partially to blame, saying:
“It is ridiculous to allow someone of his age to make payments without any checks being done. It is impossible to monitor everything your children do. These companies should take some responsibility. They take advantage of vulnerable people.”

OK storing card details long term is something I wouldn't like to see, what if you sell the console or it gets stolen? but if it can be turned off by the parent the parent should turn it off and Microsoft should make sure its blatantly obvious how to do it but harder to re activate via a 3rd person ie the child.

Sadly, such strong words have not resulted in any kind of refund for Dawn. Poor Brendan isn’t any better off, either. His tender age and innocence mean that he’s escaped punishment. However, when shown the results of his spending spree, he burst into tears, unplugged his Xbox and said he didn’t want it any more.

Oh dear...

first
refund?
he bought the damn things, seeing as most of it is digital downloads there is nothing to return so no damaged goods from wear and tear, but whos to say how much use was gotten out of it prior to finding out the bill?

second
He burst into tears and doesnt want his xbox anymore (with a grands worth of stuff on it?) you cant aford things now due to this but unplugging it isnt going to make the money come back, you bought it, feel guilty, accept you are not going to get any treats for a while and call what you spent on it this years and the next few birthday and christmas presents all in one.

third
Escape punishment?
OK he made fruadulant debit card payments with someone elses card, but punishment would only come if her mother decided to prossicute.

Finally I thought debit cards used money that was in the bank, no money no sale, so how do you get debt? surely there was a grand in the bank already.

I was rather shocked when I first installed iTunes and it wanted a payment method for the online store, I buy CD's to rip for my iPod (and previous mp3 players) if I was to buy via iTunes I would have gotten a gift card.

[Andara Bledin]

Finally I thought debit cards used money that was in the bank, no money no sale, so how do you get debt? surely there was a grand in the bank already.

"More than £1000" is was the total being bandied about everywhere, but nobody is mentioning over what timeframe the charges came in. She put in her details "18 months ago" so the kid spent an average of about $100 per month. It would be easy to lose $100/month on an account and not really get hit with overdrafts. This would be particularly easy if you just checked your balance and never actually, say, kept a register or checked your charges, both of which are highly irresponsible.

As much as I'd like to sympathize with the woman, she's taken a second job to pay her bills, but never thought to look at her bank statements to see where the money was going? Who does that?

^-.-^

[ExRetailDrone]

I'm with Andara. I sympathize with the mother because money issues are stressful. However, if she was struggling that much, the kid shouldn't have had an Xbox LIVE account in the first place. It is most certainly not a necessity and if money is a problem then frivolous things like a gaming account should be the first to get cut out of the picture.

Also, she's trying to blame Microsoft for being irresponsible while she had no idea what her kid was doing online! I realize she works a lot to make ends meet, but that is no excuse to not know what is going on with your child. Before ever having set up Xbox LIVE, she should have looked into it to see how to protect her son and her finances. I'm sure there is plenty of information online to find.

And I'm not sure if it's the same in the UK, but I know in the US you can purchase Xbox LIVE cards. I don't have an Xbox so I'm only going by what I can gather, but it seems that you put in the code from the card and it upgrades the associated account to Xbox LIVE Gold for the number of months specified on the card. That way, no credit information is stored on the system.

Overall, it's a shitty situation for her, but there were options she could have taken that would not have lead to her being in this position.

[Cats]

If she needs a second job to pay her bills, there's no need for an XBox 360 to even be in the place, especially with an online subscription. Video game consoles are a luxury, not a necessity. With the exception of my Game Boy (where the system and games were cheaper than a home console), my parents never bought a game console until a few months ago, and we were well off enough that we could afford a console and a library of games.

I can understand she didn't realize the card info would be stored/connected with the live account. However, with a little research, she probably could have discovered this ages ago. Besides, whatever happened to checking up on your child? She might have found some of the things he bought, and had a family discussion and put a stop to this beforehand. It's not up to Microsoft to babysit her child. They have no idea who's really using the console.

I've only seen the XBox Live CARDS, which I thought only went up to 12 months. Can you get a longer subscription? 18 months for a live subscription seems a bit long. I don't know about the UK, but I know in the US the price for live did go up sometime in the past year (my bro commented on it at Xmas, plus we saw 2 different priced cards. Turns out the one at the local wholesale was in the inventory remaining for the old priced cards, plus they had it $10 cheaper than that. It was pretty sweet of a deal). I would think she'd have to renew the subscription at some point, though with her card info it could have been automatic, in which case, if she'd been keeping tabs on her bank account, would have noticed.

As for the kid 'not knowing he was racking up charges', while I don't own an XBox, wouldn't the prices be listed on there? Where did he think the money to pay for it was comming from?

[Gravekeeper]

I am sympathetic, but this is a pitfall entirely of her own making. There is no one to blame but herself. End of story. X-Box Live has, as MS pointed out, a plethora of parental controls she obviously ignored. Nevermind her son must be rather daft to actually think he just magically gets games for free despite the fact price tags are plastered all over everything. Especially since MS uses a points system, for which he would have actively had to go buy points for a blatantly listed price tag, then buy stuff with said points. There's also no excuse for not noticing this stuff on your statements for 18 months.

Also, Bill Gates hasn't been in charge of anything at Microsoft for years ;p

[Hyena Dandy]

Alright, this 'its not much to Bill Gates' thing is the worst try at sympathy I've ever seen.

Look, I'm not the most responsible with money. But one thing I know is that if I fuck something up, I've gotta pay it. I'm very careful about what I do with my money.

This is why you need to keep a running tally and keep checking your bills to see if there's anything you don't recognize. >_>

I have no sympathy.

I mean, yes, its a shame that it happened. But its her own fault. And really, is a videogame system absolutely necessary?



Children don't understand the value of money (especially if you don't teach them, not saying she hasn't, just saying) which is why you don't let them spend it.

Also, the card is stored on your profile on the XBox. She could have just given him a different profile.

I'm sorry she didn't understand that the card stayed hooked up. And if she came out and said "I didn't realize it" then I'd sympathize. But instead, it sounds like she's trying to get a refund and is going to the press to put pressure on Microsoft.

So.

No sympathy.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

Microsoft isn't obligated to do anything. The card was in the name of a legal adult (the mother) and NOT the child. I've worked in games stores, I know people who spend $1000 on Xbox stuff like it was nothing. I really doubt the charges looked suspicious to Microsoft.

Having said that, I think they should take advantage of the good PR opportunity and at least reduce the charges a little bit.

Also, it's a wise choice to NEVER put your card number on an Xbox or if you do, make sure to cancel as soon as you're done doing whatever is you needed to do. You can buy points cards and live memberships in retail stores (or through amazon) and not have to worry about Microsoft getting your payment info.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I side for Microsoft on this one.

At current rates, that 1,000 pounds is $1,600 US.

That's on average of $57.14 per month spent.

Now that's not an unreasonable sum in of itself, but if you bother to check your statements once in a while, that's something you should notice and question.

Either she paid for a yearly subscription and should be wondering why there are Xbox Live charges every month, or if you're on a monthly plan you should be asking why there are more than one charge per month.

Further to that, there is the fact that she used a credit card on the system. Having been the victim of constant re-occurring charges when I didn't want them any more (see the following links from Customers Suck...part 1 and part 2) I have learned that the best way to use a service that has them is to use the pre-paid cards. iTunes? I buy the pre-paid cards for me and the kids and their accounts. Wii points? Buy the card. My wife and I both have a World of Warcrack habit, we but the gametime cards.

Anything that doesn't offer a pre-paid card, we have a reloadable pre-paid Visa for just such situations. That way if any merchant gets grabby when we cancel the service or if anyone gets a hold of the card or the number, they're only going to get the last couple of bucks that are left over after we pay for whatever we're going to be paying for.

Hell! We don't even HAVE a checking account or a Debit card (just an ATM card) and just have a savings account. Haven't overdrawn or had a surprise charge since.

I do think that for PR's sake, Microsoft should work with that person to make a payment plan *but* collect every dime that is owed to them.

Otherwise they're going to get swamped by every lowlife who wants to get their service for free by whining like a little bitch with a skinned knee at them. Make her pay everything, but give her a way to make it easy.

I do know this much...say Bye Bye to that kid's access to Xbox Live for a while. I'm guessing he'll be allowed to log back on in his mid-thirties...maybe.

[Greenday]

Blame mom and kid. Microsoft did nothing wrong. Kid recklessly spent mom's money. Mom didn't look into any safety precautions preventing her kid from using her credit card for anything but the intended purpose. She obviously didn't check her account ever or keep a checkbook (I don't keep a checkbook but I just go online and check).

I don't have too much sympathy for this situation, except for microsoft who has to deal with bad publicity because yet another moron doesn't know how to properly manage money.

[muses_nightmare]

I agree that this is something the mother should have seen if she had bothered to check statements once in awhile. It's not as if the kid racked up this debt in a month or some such. (unless I'm reading that wrong...) It sucks that she didn't know they stored the info, but that's really something a responsible person checks into.

I'm also assuming debit means credit card in this case...I've never heard of being able to use a debit card to pay for stuff like this (aside from buying the prepaid cards at the store), you have to enter your pin every time and swipe/insert the card, it also only takes out what you have in your account unless you have an account that allows for overdrafts, any cards I've had just declined if there wasn't enough money in them.

[Eisa]

I also sympathize with the mother, but yep it's her and the kid's fault. He's certainly to blame for this, too, he should have known better than to think that he could magically buy stuff and not have it end up on SOMETHING he or his mom had to pay for.

Sucks that she has to pay it all back, but...oh well.

[Greenday]

I'm also assuming debit means credit card in this case...I've never heard of being able to use a debit card to pay for stuff like this (aside from buying the prepaid cards at the store), you have to enter your pin every time and swipe/insert the card, it also only takes out what you have in your account unless you have an account that allows for overdrafts, any cards I've had just declined if there wasn't enough money in them.

Um, why couldn't you use a debit card? I do. I don't own any credit cards. When you go to a store and you pay with your debit card, you can run it through as credit or debit. When you use it for something like Xbox Live, it runs through as credit so you don't have to enter your pin.

[draco664]

Having said that, I think they should take advantage of the good PR opportunity and at least reduce the charges a little bit.

If they do that it will unleash a flood of EWs all demanding refunds because of their speshul snotsnowflake bought stuff they weren't supposed to.

[Ginger Tea]

I'm also assuming debit means credit card in this case...I've never heard of being able to use a debit card to pay for stuff like this (aside from buying the prepaid cards at the store), you have to enter your pin every time and swipe/insert the card, it also only takes out what you have in your account unless you have an account that allows for overdrafts, any cards I've had just declined if there wasn't enough money in them.

In the UK we or at least I, buy alot of things via debit cards when not using cash, I myself will not go and get a credit card, as long as there is cash in the bank for it I can buy it, before he left, one of our drivers told me that one guy bought a flash car on switch (now solo) he had the dosh in the bank and it was bought and paid for there and then.

OK in my first post I kinda assumed it was an all in one purchace, but aye over 18 month you can spend that money without noticing it, perhaps the money troubles stemmed from there not being enough money to cover a standing order, then hammered with a £30 or what ever it is, bank charge, so without looking into her statements she might have taken up the second job to get the extra cash thinking her current job just wasn't earning enough, when it was it was just covering what bills she had and not taking all her sons spending into account as she didn't know about them.

As for the prepay visa's, they are not big over here, I have seen one and one only (OK as I don't work in retail it may turn out they are rather prolific) but I like the idea of having a second account for online sales so if any thing gets phished theres nothing much to take.

again, if I were to buy via iTunes I would get a gift card and any other service like that I would do the same, if I had to use my debit card, I would look into a second account or one of those prepay cards first.

[Andara Bledin]

Um, why couldn't you use a debit card? I do. I don't own any credit cards. When you go to a store and you pay with your debit card, you can run it through as credit or debit. When you use it for something like Xbox Live, it runs through as credit so you don't have to enter your pin.

I'm pretty sure that we in the US are fairly odd in that we have hybrid debit/credit cards. I believe Canada and the UK specifically don't, which leads to confusion when we in the US go around assuming that everybody else in the world does things the way we do.

^-.-^