Stop adults from purchasing using family sharing

The entire design of Family Sharing is to have a unified payment method. If you have adults in your family that are abusing your payment method, remove them.

You knew their purchases would be charged to your payment method when you set Family Sharing up.

You can vent your frustrations to Apple here.

>>> http://www.apple.com/feedback/ <<<

The amount of money that is made by these unauthorized adults is probably in the millions if not more.

Your logic is flawed. Do you honestly believe that a business plan includes the logic... "we will make millions from adult family members who will buy apps that other adults will keep paying for, even after they get asked not to..."

If this was simply about money, there would no family sharing. Period. Everyone pays for every app.

If an adult that "you" invite to your family, abuses your payment method, remove them from the family. That should be no more than 2 conversations.

One can't always expect technology to solve what is essentially a domestic dispute or issue of trust and responsibility within a group of 6 people.

i do see why apple wants this privilege to apply only to real families and their litmus test of what is a family is are you willing to pay for their purchases. we SHOULD however be able to make all family members request approval before purchasing on organizer's card however. I put my special-needs niece on my apple music family plan and she immediately racked up $140 in "gold bar" purchases in candy crush in 24 hours on my credit card. I was told that i cannot add the restriction to get purchases approved in advance to her account because she is officially an adult even though she is special needs. and no adults need to get permission for purchases. sigh.

The amount of money that is made by these unauthorized adults is probably in the millions if not more. This is why Apple will not restrict this. If you are listed as an adult you can purchase anything on the primary's card which is BS. Apple can restrict this or at least prompt the primary for approval. It's a simple to do but they would lose millions on people not wanting to deal with trying to get this credited back. Because of this I am done with Apple Music and this BS family share.

IMO, it's not even about maximizing profit. If that were the case, there would no sharing at all.

It's an attempt to strike a balance. Sharing within a family is the entire point of Family Sharing. It's not Neighbourhood Sharing, or Workplace Sharing.

Here is an example of users wanting technology to resolve what are not technical issues.

"you bought it, you pay for it" is an age old issue that won't be resolved, IMO, by any means of technology, other than removing an "offender" from the privilege and benefits of sharing. A fiscal timeout if you will.

Any solution on this? This is becoming more and more of a problem. We have two sets of parents plus my kids all living in our home and having fun with iPhones, iPads, and Apple TV, and I need for everyone to be able to share purchases, but we can't have adult family members be allowed to indiscriminately make purchases off of my card unless I can approve them just like children making purchases. I can't believe there isn't a fix for this. Either force everyone to use the approval request system like the kids or restrict purchase power to specific adults, and force other adults to either enter their own payment method or force them to add a gift card for their own purchases. There has got to be a fix.

+1 Kindly come up with a solution for this.

I totally agree with you here, I want to setup family sharing with two family members one an adult and one a child.

I am really unhappy about not being able to block all purchases from other people.

Why on earth Apple can you not understand that people actually want control over there own finances!

Giving other people effectively free use of you Credit Card is absurd.

All I want (and probably most people) is a View option, so if I buy a Movie I don't have to be around if they want to watch it.

I am the organizer of Family Sharing and I invited my two brothers to join and also my good friend and while they're all adults not children, I am not able to stop them from making purchases from my account. I do NOT understand why I don't have the option to stop them from making these purchases on MY account without MY consent or authorization.

I am aware the option to be asked is enabled for children so why can't the same option be enabled for adults? Why can't they be in my Family Sharing while making their own purchases? I do not want to have to remove them from Family Sharing as the only option. Please fix this issue.

This is absurd, why would there be no option to block adults... I am bamboozled by the thought process. I like to have the family share but it also allows all family to buy on my dime? This needs to be fixed NOW! Please if anyone important at apple reads this stuff you need to add the option to block adults, you aren't that dumb..

Hi zaba,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!

Other adults in your Family Sharing group can use iTunes Store gift cards if they do not wish to have the payment default to the organizer. The individual adult can add a gift card credit to their individual account that will be charged first, before defaulting to the organizer’s payment method.

Family purchases and payments - Apple Support

Making purchases

After you set up your family, any time a family member initiates a new purchase it will be billed directly to your account unless that family member has gift or store credit. First, their store credit will be used to pay the partial or total bill. The remainder will bill to the family organizer's card. As the family organizer, any receipts generated by the transaction will be sent to you. Learn more about how iTunes Store purchases are billed.

Best regards,

Joe

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

I think the workaround is to get to the "offender" idevice and set a restriction for purchases in "Restrictions".

Or actually they should put it themselves since this will require their credentials on their iadvice.

Use parental controls on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Not Helpful.