Should parents be responsible when kids make unauthorized online purchases?
Connecticut mom Jessica Johnson is stuck with a $16,000 bill after her 6-year-old son, George, went on an online gaming shopping spree, making a bunch of in-app purchases while playing Sonic Forces on her iPad. What started as a few micro purchases at $1.99 graduated to $99 purchases and more that Jessica initially thought were fraudulent.
Instead of reporting the charges to her credit card company, Jessica went directly to her bank. But once they found the culprit, the 60-day grace period to contest charges had passed -- leaving her without recourse from Apple or PayPal. Seems Jessica didn’t know she had to do special settings on the game to prevent this from happening – and reportedly Apple had no sympathy.