Inadvertent $1500 in app purchase Tap Zoo - warning!

I just got hit with over $400 in charges for my two week old IPad. My 6 year old said "it's not real money Dad".

Now Let me say I do not need to hear opinionated people with way too much time in their hands scold me. The parents posting here know that they made a mistake. While it may make you feel somehow superior posting how dumb you believe we all are in reality you are very insecure and need to find a better way to increase your sense of self worth. We get it that you are miserable and have few friends so can spend your day online posting useless drivel.

I have had PCs and laptops for nearly twenty years. I recently entered the Apple world and this is not a great way to start. My boy is very bright and I allow him to play children's games unsupervised (Oh my!) as he knows right from wrong and always asks if he can make a purchase in his games like Wizard 101. In those games there are more steps involved in a purchase and the fact you are paying is always evident as your credit card, billing info must be entered each time. Anyone who doesn't believe having $149.99 purchase options for virtual berries in kids game is meant to scam an unsuspecting parent user is very shy of common sense and ignorant of how the greedy of the world work.

Now I did get to talk to a rep today and he instructed me on how to get refunded. I will never be in this position again but it obviously is a dirty way to do business and I hope Apple sees how bad it makes the company look to be associated with these types of App developers.

I just thought I'd share my experience and will try to update this post but as I actually have a life and am a busy man with no time to post multiple times in a day, check back to see who I offended and then feel all high and mighty I doubt I will get back on here soon.

Cheers

markas214 wrote:

I just got hit with over $400 in charges for my two week old IPad. My 6 year old said "it's not real money Dad".

Now Let me say I do not need to hear opinionated people with way too much time in their hands scold me. The parents posting here know that they made a mistake. While it may make you feel somehow superior posting how dumb you believe we all are in reality you are very insecure and need to find a better way to increase your sense of self worth. We get it that you are miserable and have few friends so can spend your day online posting useless drivel.

I have had PCs and laptops for nearly twenty years. I recently entered the Apple world and this is not a great way to start. My boy is very bright and I allow him to play children's games unsupervised (Oh my!) as he knows right from wrong

I just thought I'd share my experience and will try to update this post but as I actually have a life and am a busy man with no time to post multiple times in a day, check back to see who I offended and then feel all high and mighty I doubt I will get back on here soon.

Cheers

let me see if i understand you correctly: you come on here telling people not to post stuff in response that offends you, but yet it's okay for you to offend everyone else? and your son is very bright yet but says it's not real money?

I'm totally against insulting but telling a parent his kid is not bright just because he doesnt know a wagon of berries cost real money, specially in a game were there is "game cash"/"berries"/"tokens", the kid is playing along and earning this said cash by completing tasks in the game, he presses a button that tells him he can get 150 with just a click. Thinking its just part of the game, a way to earn more game cash doesnt make him any less bright. Please dont insult the kids, even the smatest kid's knowledge is limited and every parent sees their kid as bright, thats love for our children and no one has the right to make us belive any less.

a childs awareness as a measure of intellegence or upbringing is very flawed, so that pointless argument apart, the wrong of this type of selling as i see it follows -:

example 1

you have an amount of cash kept out of normal site say in a bedroom drawer, you child requires some money and you trust your child to go and get lets say £5, not take more than allowed or help thememselves later without asking.

the principle is trust for THIS IS A ONCE ONLY TRANSACTION WITH YOUR PERMISSION.

i.e. You would not expect that child as a person you fully trust to hence forth help themselves as they please, without asking you 1st.

Examle 2.

you have some money held your vehicle, you freind sells you a small item which you fund from your 'pot'. You would not expect them to supply more items on the assumption you have bought before.

Credit Card companies hold very sensative information, completing a transaction can be for very large amounts, the initial transaction may be for £0.99 but the trader can then draw many hundreds of pounds before you are aware.

But just ring up and ask any simple question and your subgected to a barrage of mindless data protection act privacy questions. Yet making a single credit card transaction to any trader, allows that trader to later draw more money unhindered from your card and as they see fit. Had someone taken money without prior permission, be prosecuted and offerred the excuse 'it was for the victim to buy a bowl of green cornflakes' as a defence, well i ask you?

it is this afrontary to your trust you have should expected from or any trusted relation or freind is what causes the angst, and also in complete innocence you don't expect anyone would dare help them selelves having been so trusted, face on and doscovered uyou'd likely punch their lights out.

In the UK law has was changed to some degree to reduce this problem, in that if you tell your credit card company to make no more payments to that vendor then the card company has to stop those payments - but you must tell them and only from that time are you protected.

Trouble is, partly due to Apples slow advising of transactions, you are often well down before you realise. While i do see the point that many do not want 'nannying', given the target market is the young, used blatently as a ruse to gaining payment from the 'responsible so financing adult', i think it should be illigal to draw additional payments from any card without further password.

i personally dislike it when insurrance companies put me as a default on auto-renew, they claim it prevents me going accidentally un-insurred, but it is well known it's best to shop arround. I saved £180 on a motor bike policy offering far better cover as example,

I make it very clear i do not want auto renue every time i buy any service on any card.

For those who do not care for that restriction thats fine, a direct debit access should be allowed, for this would be i think as close at it could be, to appease all.

Alan

If I had a six year old daughter, (sadly my three babies now total over 120 years between them) I would read the description of the app in the App Store before installing it. The sentence "PLEASE NOTE: Tap Zoo lets you purchase items within the game for real money. Please disable in-app-purchases on your device if you do not want this feature to be available." might have given you a clue.

Great way to do parenting.

The point being made is how much you can spend with no further checks.

A very simple safeguard would be a texted code you enter to authorise a transaction - as is done with my PayPal payments, have you ask for it to be set up, but you can't use PP in the app store as yet! - WHY?

You very well can use PayPal in the App Store. I use it.

A simple safeguard is to require the password every time a purchase is made. This can easily be done in the Restrictions area of Settings. This has been pointed out numerous times on this thread.

Yes that would have fixed the problem. Another solution is for Apple to change the default behavior of the iPhone to not remember the password for 15 minutes after it has been entered. It does that today so purchases can be made without entering the password immediately after downloading an app. It appears that some games have optimized for that by trying to sell as much as possible in that time.

this is new to e! but if so then i suggest to use this payment method - i'm off to adjust my payment method.

Will M$ live follow this lead? add a credit card to you account to pay £1 for a weekends gold and you open a vein direct to your funds, even auto renewal of 'live' at the highest tariff - beware!

Yes, I'm joining this discussion as we have a 6 yr old and have also been caught out to the tune of £156.

Yes, we were naive and thought we had learnt our lesson at £25: fortunately the bank stopped the additional attempted purchases (£131) and blocked the card.

We breathed a sign of relief that the lesson had "only" cost us £25, called the bank to clear up the mess, and hastily set the iPad restrictions as well as deleting the offending kids game whilst the 6 yr old was in bed.

Imagine our surprise the next morning when we found the total charges had gone up to £156. It seems apple was able to re-submit the charges at some point after we called the bank. There were absolutely no further attempts made through the app. How can this happen? Who is to blame here? And how can it possibly be legal? (BTW, I've had endless problems trying to re-submit a purchase for a genuine transaction in the past - is Apple not subject to the same rules as the rest of the world?)

Isn't it time we started to lobby the powers-that-be (Apple? Government? Regulatory authorities?) to put an end to this ridiculous, immoral scam? The only possible justification that Apple and these app-developers can possibly give for outrages charges in kids games is to con the unwary. How many £millions will they make out of new users over Christmas? It's just plain wrong. Where can I sign up?

You cannot "lobby the powers-that-be" to make parents read the instructions for and correctly setup the devices they freely allow their children to use.

Being "unwary" is no excuse. All the information needed and the safeguards that are necessary are provided, right in front of you, if you want to read and use them. No intervention by Apple, the Government or Regulatory authorities will change anything. Some parents will always want to blame others for their own mistakes.

Would being an "unwary" driver be an adequate excuse for running people over in the street? Or would you expect someone in control of a car to have learnt how to operate it before using it?

Utterly ridiculous argument. It's not a question of wariness or safeguards.

Who exactly are the intended purchasers of these add-ons? What is the legitimate business case?

Please let me know how many idiots - adult or child - will download a free app with the intention of then spending hundreds of real ££s on an imaginary bag of jewels? The very existence of these charges is immoral.

The intended purchasers are the AppStore account holders like all AppStore purchases. Like any product that is sold, you have a free choice whether to buy it or not. There are a wide variety of "in-app purchases" in free games (extra levels, items to help your progress, upgrades etc.), which range in price from £0.69 upwards. They are entirely optional. You do not need to buy these optional purchases. You have a free choice whether to buy or not.

Lots of game players freely choose to buy these optional extras for a variety of reasons. They want extra levels, they want to progress in the game more quickly, they want to enhance the game. Many other people choose not to buy these items and progress through the game more slowly, with the base set of features.

The business case is simple. Games do not write themselves. They cost money to create. Developers need to make a living. Getting your game noticed in a highly competitive market is very difficult. Marketing budgets are limited for small developers. Giving the basic game away free, and then allowing players to buy additional items is one way of funding the development of these games. In-app purchases are not limited to iPhone/iPad games. Every games console (Xbox, PS3, Wii etc.) has similar systems, as do PC games. Even the Amazon Kindle may offer the first book in a series for free, and then charge you for additional books in the series.

It seems that it is your level of understanding that is "utterly ridiculous". If you don't want to partcipate in these types of game sales, then don't. Your options:

1) Simply don't download games with In-App Purchases (try reading the descriptions first)

2) Use the provided iOS feature to turn off the ability to make In-App Purchases on the device

The power is all yours. Use it. And stop trying to blame others for your incompetence.

Used to love Apple wrote:

Yes, I'm joining this discussion as we have a 6 yr old and have also been caught out to the tune of £156.

Yes, we were naive and thought we had learnt our lesson at £25: fortunately the bank stopped the additional attempted purchases (£131) and blocked the card.

We breathed a sign of relief that the lesson had "only" cost us £25, called the bank to clear up the mess, and hastily set the iPad restrictions as well as deleting the offending kids game whilst the 6 yr old was in bed.

Imagine our surprise the next morning when we found the total charges had gone up to £156. It seems apple was able to re-submit the charges at some point after we called the bank. There were absolutely no further attempts made through the app. How can this happen? Who is to blame here? And how can it possibly be legal? (BTW, I've had endless problems trying to re-submit a purchase for a genuine transaction in the past - is Apple not subject to the same rules as the rest of the world?)

Isn't it time we started to lobby the powers-that-be (Apple? Government? Regulatory authorities?) to put an end to this ridiculous, immoral scam? The only possible justification that Apple and these app-developers can possibly give for outrages charges in kids games is to con the unwary. How many £millions will they make out of new users over Christmas? It's just plain wrong. Where can I sign up?

Your child spends your money = Your responsibility ...... Man Up.

Used to love Apple wrote:

Utterly ridiculous argument. It's not a question of wariness or safeguards.

Who exactly are the intended purchasers of these add-ons? What is the legitimate business case?

Please let me know how many idiots - adult or child - will download a free app with the intention of then spending hundreds of real ££s on an imaginary bag of jewels? The very existence of these charges is immoral.

You allowed your child access, face your own responsiblities.