Children say and do the darnedest things. They present parents with some of life’s greatest surprises. Sometimes, the child himself is the greatest surprise. This Canadian teen gave his dad a surprise that he’ll never forget.
As an early Christmas present, Lance Perkins, the father of a Pembroke, Ontario, teen was sent a credit card bill for the total of $7,625.88. Most of the bill had been taken up by Xbox Live charges. The 17 year old teen had purchased multiple microtransactions in one of the FIFA games.
“He thought it was a one-time fee for the game,” Perkins said. “He’s just as sick as I am, [because] he never believed he was being charged for every transaction, or every time he went onto the game.”
Perkins quickly called their credit card company, who only stated that denying the charges would put his son up for fraud. Contacting Microsoft proved almost as fruitless: they stated that the bill would stand, and cited some of the Microsoft Services Agreement.
“Purchases made using a parent’s payment account are legitimate transactions under the Microsoft Services Agreement, and we encourage parents to use the many platform and service features we make available to prevent unapproved charges,” the statement said.
Perkins then sent another email stating that the purchaser of the microtransactions was a minor. From there, Microsoft said that they would look into the matter.
“Until I actually hear from them, it’s actually very discouraging,” Perkins said.
This and many other cases like it are a reminder to parents everywhere to make sure the child settings are all up and running on minor’s video game systems. Perkins has a better solution to the problem.
“There will never be another Xbox system — or any gaming system — in my home.”