Inadvertent $1500 in app purchase Tap Zoo - warning!

Tonefox clearly is not a parent. I consider myself a pretty savvy parent and I did not even know there was in-app purchasing without the requirement of a password. I keep tight control on my iPhone and have trained my child to ask before she downloads anything, even free games. This is a very deceptive practice, and further who on EARTH has the time to read an entire phone manual. Again, Tonefox, if you have time to read the entire manual you don't have kids.

Tonefoxhas three kids, whose age adds up to 120.

So in a sense, you ara right. There wasn't even such a thing as a personal computer when they were young. When they were, between the ages of 0 and 14, I only had enough time to read enough manuals to make a career training people how to use mainframes.

To claim parenthood makes it impossible to look things up in a small user guide is ridiculous.

TooDarkPark wrote:

Switch your billing to Paypal through iTunes and you will get a notice through Paypal every time a purchase is made,

That doesn't seem to be supported here yet. Thanks for the tip though. I'll keep an eye on it.

debbyfrommn wrote:

My 9 year old daughter had made about 100 dollars in unauthorized charges on in app games on our ipad. I removed the credit card information from our i-tunes account only to find out that in the past four days she made an additional $200 dollars in purchases. She is beside herself because she didn't know that she was spending real money. I have worked on trying to figure out what to do about these charges for the past 2 hours and cannot seem to contact a real human being to talk to about this. Does anyone have information on how to directly contact apple or i-tunes?

Contact your credit card provider instead, dispute the charges and take the money back, I have found that usually aids in communication 🙂

Seriously people... Stop blaming Apple for this, i'm not gonna go on spouting the whole 'You're bad parents!' routine, but at the same time, what's with blaming Apple for this? You realise that any purchases made WITHIN the application belong entirely too the developers of the application, the purchase of the application itself gives Apple a certain percentage, used too help keep the App Store and iTunes in general running, but not purchases within the app. You're all lucky Apple has given you a refund, rightfully they could turn you away with a slap on the wrist and say you should read the manual, and read the full description of an Application before downloading it, how do you think the developers of the App are able too make new apps and have them hosted on the App store if they have Free apps with no in-app purchases too keep them running?

Contact the people who made the app, say "Hey, I didn't read your description fully, but my child racked up $_____ and I want it back!", they're the ones who made the app like it, they're the ones at fault, not Apple who simply host the apps.

-- ThatGuy

for the most part i agree, but i'd have less qualms if these in game add on's were a more palitable price .

tbh how can it be justified to pay $99 a pop for 25 gold monkey nutts?

nobody wants to in in this situation and nobody wants to be nannied, from what i've seen i feel it should be made far more obvious that serious real money is going to be charged. i'd like to see a maximum limit inplace, where after to buy more requires the user password (or better a dedticated password for that vendor), say £10 with a running total of over 7 days, of example £100.00 (perhaps a limit the user has set in app preferences).

surely, the app makers would have far less hassle?

From what i've seen, most App Makers are pretty good, take the guys that made Infinity Blade for example, you have too tap like three different buttons, and enter a password on every like, second purchase or something, with no individual purchase over $50.

We've also gotta think of a flip-side for this, if Apple decided too impose a limit, there would surely be people out there who like spending grand amounts of cash, and would then rant and rave that Apple is 'controlling everything'. So it's sadly one of those situations where someone will ALWAYS be blaming Apple, take FindMyiPhone for example, people rant and rave when they lose their phones because 'Apple can't track it!', same people would probably rant and rave about their personal rights if Apple decided 'Hey, lets track everyone'.

If we want a limit or some such, that should be directed at the people who make the apps, same for the pricing of the stupid stuff they sell in their games, rather than ranting here about it, when I doubt the people who make the app even care what we say here, and Apple is unable too do much without straight up pulling the App from the store, which would surely bring up some sort of contractual issues.

paulcb wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

Don't forget that you can ..... Go to Settings - General - Enable Restrictions - Disable in app purchase.

And the problem is solved.

... and set "Require Password" to Immediately.

Thanks for pointing that out 🙂

Many thanks for this link baileyis.

My 6 year old racked up £300 worth of coin pack purchases for a game called Temple Run on Sunday, which I only discovered this morning.

Apple were fantastic; I contacted them via the link, and within 15 minutes of e mailing them I received a reply, and the offer of a one off refund.

I feel an idiot for not having taken the necessary precautions in the first place, and consider myself very lucky that I have learned a valuable lesson without being hit in the pocket.

These types of games do strike me as being ethically dubious; gaining such financial reward through the ignorance of children, or their parents, seems sharp practice to me.

However, the customer service I received from Apple was outstanding, and I think that their willingness to address my concerns, when they could have hidden behind a defence of Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware) , shows an integrity that you would not get from many Multi National Companies.

I'm in the same boat. My twins have racked up over £120 worth of points on Racing Penguin. How did you get a refund?

I was furious with the kids until I found out that no authorisation is required. There has got to be a law against this.

$1,145 CD over here!

i do appreciate the tip re: settings, and am going to try very, very hard to get the money refunded. but i'm not optimistic.

apple must be enjoying all this extra income they're getting from CHILDREN. and that is truly disgusting.

traefromon wrote:

$1,145 CD over here!

i do appreciate the tip re: settings, and am going to try very, very hard to get the money refunded. but i'm not optimistic.

apple must be enjoying all this extra income they're getting from CHILDREN. and that is truly disgusting.

The extra income goes to the game developers not Apple, why aren't you supervising your children better?

actually - apple gets a cut of all apps. they're not a charity. they're in it to make money. but i do congratulate you on your ability to focus on what's important to the subject.

and i do supervise my children, thank you very much. these purchases were made all w/in two days. as itunes provides receipts days and days after purchases, i had no way to knowing.

but thanks for your erudite comment! i can tell you were motivated by an urge to help, as i can't imagine what type of person would be so churlish on a subject that is obviously a reoccuring problem on purpose. although, it must be nice to be omnipotent!

You can get a refund from Apple. My credit card company also denied the charge (they called me because their system had allerted it as a fraudulent charge).

Its a little difficult to contact Apple on this stuff. You need to go to the Itunes support page and send an email to Itunes support. They were a little non-commital ... but persistence and a regretfull email from my daughter seemed to do the trick. They said it would be a "one time only" refund and that if it happened again I would be responcible for the charge. Obviously I have changed the setting on the Ipod to disallow in app purchases and to remove the 15 minute grace period from password entries. I think others have had success by approaching the App vendor.

... and for all the haters. I am a good parent, I do monitor my children ... I guess I didn't read the manual closely enough when I set-up the kids ipods ... that being said ... I think the charges are a cash grab that Apple enables. I think the problem could be solved simply by;

1. Setting the Security option for In App purchases to "disallow" by default.

2. Providing a setting to limit the dollar value of In App purchases.

3. Provide immediate notification/invoicing of Itunes Purchases ... most online vendors do this, why can't Apple?

traefromon wrote:

actually - apple gets a cut of all apps. they're not a charity. they're in it to make money. but i do congratulate you on your ability to focus on what's important to the subject.

and i do supervise my children, thank you very much. these purchases were made all w/in two days. as itunes provides receipts days and days after purchases, i had no way to knowing.

but thanks for your erudite comment! i can tell you were motivated by an urge to help, as i can't imagine what type of person would be so churlish on a subject that is obviously a reoccuring problem on purpose. although, it must be nice to be omnipotent!

You could have disabled in app purchases, you could have removed your password for purchases, instead you did nothing, I guess you are not responsible for that, so who is?