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Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

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Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#181

Post by bobthepanda »

mindgam3 wrote: post #15

The issue is Facebook denying refund requests after children were suckered in to make large in-game payments using their parents' stored credit cards. It's not just that this whole scenario is slimy. It's that Facebook was fully aware of it, had a nice in-house term for it ("friendly fraud"), and not only chose not to approve refunds but also chose not to implement the most basic measures to prevent it. [edit: as a c…

I wonder what logic the first 6 would be, as opposed to the first 4. Credit cards, at least in America, have numbers composed of blocks of four digit numbers.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#182

Post by [deleted] »

bobthepanda wrote: post #181
mindgam3 wrote: post #15

The issue is Facebook denying refund requests after children were suckered in to make large in-game payments using their parents' stored credit cards. It's not just that this whole scenario is slimy. It's that Facebook was fully aware of it, had a nice in-house term for it ("friendly fraud"), and not only chose not to approve refunds but also chose not to implement the most basic measures to prevent it. [edit: as a c…

I wonder what logic the first 6 would be, as opposed to the first 4. Credit cards, at least in America, have numbers composed of blocks of four digit numbers.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#183

Post by thiagocsf »

bobthepanda wrote: post #181
mindgam3 wrote: post #15

The issue is Facebook denying refund requests after children were suckered in to make large in-game payments using their parents' stored credit cards. It's not just that this whole scenario is slimy. It's that Facebook was fully aware of it, had a nice in-house term for it ("friendly fraud"), and not only chose not to approve refunds but also chose not to implement the most basic measures to prevent it. [edit: as a c…

I wonder what logic the first 6 would be, as opposed to the first 4. Credit cards, at least in America, have numbers composed of blocks of four digit numbers.

The first 4 digits are pre-assigned prefixes so it’s very easy to find valid ones; e.g.: visa starts with 4, MasterCard with 50-55 etc (https://creditcardjs.com/credit-card-type-detection).

The remaining digits have an error check built in so you can’t “guess” them.

Back in the offline transaction days, use of fake (generated) credit card numbers as prevalent in computer BBS to get an account for 1 day. Not that I ever did that sort of thing.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#184

Post by mcv »

Mirioron wrote: post #169
mcv wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in my opinion the core problem with credit cards: that the information to authorise payment is sent through the vendor, who can store it and reuse it without the customer being aware of it. That's just a broken payment system. A good payment system should require explicit authorisation through your own bank. That's how for example the Dutch iDeal system works. I never use a credit card for a site that accepts…

> A good payment system should require explicit authorisation through your own bank. This would basically make sure I would almost never spend any money online, because going through a bank authorization is annoying enough that I'd rather just go do something else. Forget microtransactions, I wouldn't even buy most games.

Really? What makes you so opposed to your bank? If their authorisation system is stupid, you can switch to a better bank.

Personally, I find this system a lot less painful than having to type in my credit card number. And it's a lot safer.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#185

Post by JimBrimble35 »

Probably an unpopular statement, but man does this happen a lot with fortnite. They even have a section in their help pages specifically for unauthorized purchases by family members. Also, they don't seem to care at all about who's payment method is associated with an account. You even get kids taking pictures of their parent's credit cards and passing them around.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#186

Post by PavlovsCat »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #153
PavlovsCat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much of this is the result of parents allowing children to play games unattended with games they themselves have not played to vet? None of it. You can try it. You can have a million parents leave a million children alone for most of the day, and not even a bitmap image of one cartoon coin or anything will magically be created, much less the code and distribution channels for a whole game. It doesn't make exist…

> In my mind, only a.) children and b.) very careful, well trained and aware adults should make entertainment for children. I absolutely agree with the thrust of your post, but this strikes me as a little extreme. I don't believe J.K. Rowling, for instance, had any specific training on child psychology or the like when she began writing Harry Potter. Creating non-exploitive content targeted at children is not rocket…

I agree, but not based on Harry Potter or Rowling (never read Harry Potter), but maybe Astrid Lindgren, and countless others. Strike the "training", but keep the awareness, the thinking about what one is doing, which I feel is sorely missing from many youtubers. You're right, it's not rocket science, but some people who woulnd't be able to spill a bucket if you handed them one, can still find someone to setup a camera, mic and "gamer chair" or them, and click upload on their behalf.

Maybe we were weird, but from my childhood, I remember how even kids 2 years older or younger might as well have lived in an entirely different world, much less adults or parents. Now I can't find a let's play for a game I'm interested in without coming across what is basically 20-40+ people showing off to 10+ people. This wouldn't be possible without the distortion of "virtual reality" I think. Imagine a 25 year old person coming by a bunch of 13 year olds and lifting a trash can or doing $any_other_stupid_shit, so the kids can be their "fans" and "supporters", and maybe sneak them some cents out of mommy's wallet. That's what I see when I look at a lot of youtube.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#187

Post by hakfoo »

thiagocsf wrote: post #183
bobthepanda wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what logic the first 6 would be, as opposed to the first 4. Credit cards, at least in America, have numbers composed of blocks of four digit numbers.

The first 4 digits are pre-assigned prefixes so it’s very easy to find valid ones; e.g.: visa starts with 4, MasterCard with 50-55 etc ( https://creditcardjs.com/credit-card-type-detection ). The remaining digits have an error check built in so you can’t “guess” them. Back in the offline transaction days, use of fake (generated) credit card numbers as prevalent in computer BBS to get an account for 1 day. Not that I…

The whole number is used in the checksum calculation (the Luhn algorithm). The last digit is basically the checksum.

The first six digits will identify an issuing bank and card type. All Chase Debit Visas will start with the same six digits (unless they've further broken it down), but no Citibank one will use them. It's still plenty guessable-- try the most popular prefixes and you'll probably hit a few percent of the time.

It might be based in PCI regulations. They might be allowed to store or display the first six/last four in plain text, but probably have to encrypt the whole number or store a token in lieu of the actual full card number.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#188

Post by Mirioron »

mcv wrote: post #184
Mirioron wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good payment system should require explicit authorisation through your own bank. This would basically make sure I would almost never spend any money online, because going through a bank authorization is annoying enough that I'd rather just go do something else. Forget microtransactions, I wouldn't even buy most games.

Really? What makes you so opposed to your bank? If their authorisation system is stupid, you can switch to a better bank. Personally, I find this system a lot less painful than having to type in my credit card number. And it's a lot safer.

In my country every bank has the exact same authorization methods available.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#189

Post by Mirioron »

JorgeGT wrote: post #177
Mirioron wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good payment system should require explicit authorisation through your own bank. This would basically make sure I would almost never spend any money online, because going through a bank authorization is annoying enough that I'd rather just go do something else. Forget microtransactions, I wouldn't even buy most games.

The way the system is implemented in Spain (not all sites use it sadly) is simply like 2FA, when you attempt to make the purchase the bank sends a sms or notification through their app with a code you need to input to confirm the order. Or is 2FA annoying as well for you? I know some people hate it.

I would have no problems with 2FA of the kind you described for banks. But such a system is not available here. You have to basically do a full login authentication here.

I do hate 2FA. I like it, but I hate using it. I've stopped posting on some forums/using services. I didn't actively quit them, but when the service had logged me out and it asked me for the 2FA code, I winced and went to go do something else. Over time this happened enough that at some point I just didn't visit the site anymore.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#190

Post by PavlovsCat »

slfnflctd wrote: post #129
PavlovsCat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much of this is the result of parents allowing children to play games unattended with games they themselves have not played to vet? None of it. You can try it. You can have a million parents leave a million children alone for most of the day, and not even a bitmap image of one cartoon coin or anything will magically be created, much less the code and distribution channels for a whole game. It doesn't make exist…

When 'society' keeps getting worse, the only advocate remaining for the child is the parent. I agree that those who make these apps are worse than the parents who are too busy to catch/prevent such incidents before they happen, but those sorts of people have been with humanity for a looong time and aren't going anywhere any time soon. I have been somewhat surprised and saddened to see comments suggesting so in this t…

> We need to do both.

I agree completely with that.

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