Nothing in life is free, and believe it or not, most free games are just too good to
be true.
Once you've been hooked by an enticing free app, look out: you'll be charged for just
about everything else, from free passes to get around difficult levels, to a fancy new
version of Captain Picard.
You might be a sucker for it as an adult, but you know who really loves that stuff?
Kids with access to their parents' credit cards.
Here are a few times that the combination of kids and freemium games went very, very
wrong.
Jurassic Whoops
It took 7-year-old Faisall Shugaa less than a week to charge up an impressive $6,000 on
his dad's credit card in 2015.
The little gamer from Crawley, England, spent the money buying upgrades in Jurassic World:
The Game, upgrading dinosaurs, fortifying his park, and trying to fuse the legendary
Indominus Rex.
His father only discovered the spending spree when he tried using his credit card for his
business, and it was declined.
Faisall's dad demanded a refund on the basis that Apple should have notified him of the
purchases, and should've also questioned why a grown man would be so invested in dinosaurs…
aside from the fact that they're totally awesome.
Apple ultimately refunded the money, but he was still unhappy about how long it took,
and went on to claim that Apple should have paid more attention to what his son was doing.
Right.
APPLE should have been paying more attention to your son.
"Homer it's really coming down out, can you check on the boys?"
"They're fine."
Good call.
FarmVille felony
In 2010, an unnamed 12-year-old in the UK ran through his personal savings buying add-ons
in FarmVille...before snatching his mom's credit card to continue his spending spree.
Before the felonious farmer could be stopped, he'd racked up $1400 worth of in-game purchases.
When his mother asked why, he simply explained that there was good stuff that he wanted.
Sometimes kids are dumb.
"(thud)"
Her attempts failed to get either her bank or the game's developer, Zynga, to refund
her son's spending spree.
She was told that she'd need to report a crime in order to get a refund; otherwise, she was
the proud owner of a shiny, new, fake farm.
While she did admit that it was entirely her son's fault, she also suggested failsafes
be put in place to keep it from happening again.
She paid the total, and her son was never convicted of Grand Theft Turnip.
FIFA fees
What is it about simulated soccer that gets kids to spend stupid amounts of cash?
Is it just the sheer excitement of soccer?
"Boring!"
Like many responsible fathers, Lance Perkins gave his 17-year-old son a credit card in
case of any emergencies.
Great idea, except Perkins' son defined "emergency" as "needing more cash for imaginary soccer."
When Perkins got the bill for the FIFA '16 purchases, it totaled almost $5300 USD, a
spending spree that his son claimed, of course, was an accident.
And unless he wanted to charge his son with fraud, the purchases would stand.
How many soccer stadiums do you have to mow to earn $5300 bucks?
Asking for a friend.
The Hillman family found themselves in the same boat when their son spent $4500 on buying
extras for his copy of FIFA.
And just as proof that this can happen to anyone, Washington D.C.-based Jeremy Hillman
is the World Bank's director of corporate communications.
According to Hillman, his son had tried to purchase a player pack for $100, and "it hadn't
worked, so he tried a couple more times."
It apparently went through each time.
All 45 times.
"How stupid are you?"
Because Hillman is pulling down that World Bank money, he simply paid the bill, after
saying the same thing every other parent has said about how it was an accident and someone
should have been watching their kid.
The $6000 Smurf
Lily Neale sounds like a pretty normal 8-year-old girl.
According to her father, Lee, she likes to play apps like My Horse and Smurf's Village,
which is a whole lot more appropriate than, say, Surgeon Simulator.
Less normal is how, she managed to charge $6000 in around five months.
74 of those charges came in a single six-day span, and if we know our games, there was
an amazing deal on digital horses that week.
"(horse noises)"
"That's the sound of horse."
Her father, an aerospace engineer, had given her his iPad to play with.
But he didn't realize she was hitting the purchase button, nor that she memorized his
password just by watching him enter it.
Apple initially refused to give them a refund, but after Lee told his story to the media,
Apple caved, and Lily continued her career as some kind of Spy Kid.
Fire Age rage
In a bizarre sequence of events that apparently checked out with all credit card fraud safeguards,
it took a Belgian teenager just three months to charge $46,000 to his grandfather's credit
card — all from buying extras for Game of War: Fire Age.
There's nothing about this that isn't incredible, from the dollar amount, to the fact that it
took his parents months to catch onto the maniacal spending spree.
According to the teenager's mother, she'd asked him to help her purchase eBooks.
That gave him access to a credit card number, which he then linked to his own iTunes account.
The rest is history.
The story first showed up in the Belgian news, where his mother claimed that the kid didn't
understand just how much he was spending since there was no cumulative total displayed.
You know, like in real life.
Every time you buy something.
Welcome to the real world, kid.
"You're an idiot."
Thanks for watching!
Click the Grunge icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!