'My son spent £3,160 in one game' • Hacker News Board

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#231

Post by myhf » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:18 AM UTC

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #91

HenryBemis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a "7 accounts setup" for my finances. One of my accounts is labelled "Internet" and has no more than £50-£100 at any given moment. It is the card used for Paypal, Amazon, Spotify, etc. If that card gets compromised I won't lose more than that, and my bank will most likely return the funds (yes even if it's just a Debit Card). If the account runs low then Spotify won't get paid in time and I won't cry about it :…

Why would you ever use a debit card over a credit card?

Why would you ever want errors to reported while they are happening, instead of at the end of the month?

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#232

Post by ldoughty » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:21 AM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #229

I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor. The common thread in all these stories was "a kid spends a bunch of money, parent asks for a refund, is told no". But consider if the law says that digital goods such as this must be refunded on demand unless you can prove the purchaser wasn't a child. (If you want…

I think parents need to understand that you can't give children a credit card, or credit-card like power.

I was 14 before I was given access to a credit card.. and was given a dire warning about when it could and should be used.

If parents can't lock out purchases so they have to physically approve each purchase, then yes, they should be able to get refunds and penalties... But if they give their children the password to buy/download apps unsupervised, they need to understand the consequences (and really, how the heck do you not realize that unlimited purchasing power on an app store is a possibility?)

The first story in this article is about a kid with "the mental development of a 7 year old"... Well.... I wouldn't give MY 7 year old a credit card! Supervise your children! If it's too much work to monitor their purchases and approve each one, complain to the platform for more control. It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. Btw, how do you miss that 3,200 pounds is spent over 3-4 months, if that clears out your bank account? I'd agree that 14 days is a bit short for a refund period, but asking for 4 months to return digital goods that have been thoroughly used by that point..... might as well shut down all the game studios...

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#233

Post by justinhj » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:22 AM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #167

I strongly believe that video games today are comparable to alcohol in the 60's. Y'know, how people in the 60's would say "Oh Johnny just likes his liquor" when Johnny's drinking at 9AM, drunk at 10 and hungover by 2. Right now we have people who are facing serious problems with video games, and yet we brush them off casually and callously. I can't count the number of stories on reddit about playing video games all d…

It's not fair to lump all video games into one category and then malign them. Video games consist of a wide variety of forms and business models. Even the ones that people will think are exploitative, other people enjoy playing them and it forms part of their social life, a way to unwind and relax in short bursts.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#234

Post by ckdarby » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:23 AM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #229

I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor. The common thread in all these stories was "a kid spends a bunch of money, parent asks for a refund, is told no". But consider if the law says that digital goods such as this must be refunded on demand unless you can prove the purchaser wasn't a child. (If you want…

Consumers will abuse this, there is already proof of this with cardholders calling in to credit card companies claiming they didn't make the purchase and their credit card was stolen.

Further reading on the topic can be found by researching, 'friendly fraud'.

Easiest present day solution, use one time burner cards or set limit cards.

http://privacy.com , no fees, works within the USA, similar services throughout the world.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#235

Post by Lazare » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:25 AM UTC

ldoughty wrote: post #232

Lazare wrote: post #229

I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor. The common thread in all these stories was "a kid spends a bunch of money, parent asks for a refund, is told no". But consider if the law says that digital goods such as this must be refunded on demand unless you can prove the purchaser wasn't a child. (If you want…

I think parents need to understand that you can't give children a credit card, or credit-card like power. I was 14 before I was given access to a credit card.. and was given a dire warning about when it could and should be used. If parents can't lock out purchases so they have to physically approve each purchase, then yes, they should be able to get refunds and penalties... But if they give their children the passwor…

> It would take Apple, Google, Steam, etc. Or if the legal system assigned liability to them until they did. :)

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#236

Post by Lazare » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

ckdarby wrote: post #234

Lazare wrote: post #229

I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor. The common thread in all these stories was "a kid spends a bunch of money, parent asks for a refund, is told no". But consider if the law says that digital goods such as this must be refunded on demand unless you can prove the purchaser wasn't a child. (If you want…

Consumers will abuse this, there is already proof of this with cardholders calling in to credit card companies claiming they didn't make the purchase and their credit card was stolen. Further reading on the topic can be found by researching, 'friendly fraud'. Easiest present day solution, use one time burner cards or set limit cards. http://privacy.com , no fees, works within the USA, similar services throughout the…

I'm well aware; my day job often involves dealing with such reports.

I'm also aware that if you err on the side of protecting children when it comes to disputes with bottom feeders like Supercell and King their ilk, the collateral damage will mean we have fewer companies like Supercell. I consider that a feature, not a bug. :)

A few people getting refunds for gems for a shitty mobile game they don't 100% deserve is a price I'm happy to pay. Business models are not inherently viable, and as a society, we don't need to protect this one.

We don't NEED to find the right set of laws to let abusive freemium games survive while also protecting the vulnerable, because only one of those two conflicting goals is actually desirable.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#237

Post by plankers » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

bboreham wrote: post #143

codewithcheese wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2FA is one of those basic things that should be standard for all credit card charges. I want to have the change to approve or deny every charge. Is that so much to ask?

2FA will be required across the EU in September (outside of some exemptions, eg a charge under €30) https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/business/news-and-insights/wha...

I was about to say this won't help at all with the microtransaction problem detailed in the article, but then I read your link and found this more complete (although confusing) description of the exemption you name:

>single transactions must be less than €30, up to a maximum of €100 or five transactions

It's the "or" there that I don't quite understand. Does this mean that any 5 transactions can be made without 2FA as long as their cumulative total is less than €100? If so, does the system ask for 2FA after surpassing the €100 limit? Or does this mean that 5 transactions can be made as long as each is under €30?

While probably helpful to families and individuals who face these sorts of issues, the explanation of the law could certainly be clearer here...

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#238

Post by hombre_fatal » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:33 AM UTC

oposa wrote: post #137

JD557 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a nice use case for virtual credit cards with a very strict limit (just create one with $5).

There is a lot you can do, but you shouldn't have to. This isn't someone burning down their school. This is the first world becoming the third world in digital. In the third world you always to watch yourself so you don't hurt, scammed or abused with little recourse. So being curious, doing something different or challenging the status quo becomes a liability. Eventually there isn't much development at all, only corr…

Well, then the USA was "third world" long before in-app purchases. When you give someone your debit/CC info, they can basically pull infinitely from your account at any point in the future thus you have to remain eternally vigilant because you once gave someone $5. Which you didn't even do. You gave them the key to your account and trusted them to only take $5, that's how crazy our system is.

Better financial tools/primitives would have gone a long way to prevent the issue in the article which most Americans don't have. I shouldn't need my bank to hopefully create a "virtual card" feature (it doesn't). It should've been ubiquitous 20+ years ago.

This is one reason I use Paypal: I can see a list of organizations authorized to take money out of my account. My bank account and credit cards? I have no fucking idea who might show up next month. Maybe that thing I "canceled" on their website four months ago?

Or I use bitcoin because it's basically cash.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#239

Post by BLKNSLVR » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #2

Another one of those oversensationalized outrage articles that can be boiled down to "I cannot put even a minimal effort in keeping an eye on my children, so I will blame someone else for it and make it their responsibility." There is literally a setting on iOS for that specific specific scenario, which allows to prevent in-app purchases[0]. And it is very easy and intuitive to set up too, so it isn't like it is hidd…

I've been in IT Admin for years, and one of my kids managed to subscribe to two things in one day, one that cost $10 per month and one that was $78 per year, despite having exactly these kinds of controls already set on the device.

Thankfully I receive a notification email for activity on the account, so I was able to go through the non-obvious method of unsubscribing before the "three-day free trial" expired when the charges would have started.

The device was setup to require a password for in-app purchases. They even need a password to install new, free apps. I've since locked down the devices even harder, having looked up various guides on all the various settings that need to be changed from their very open defaults.

I've also removed credit card details from the shared family account - which can't be done from the device itself, only via the online account management tool.

I still don't know how those subscriptions got through, but they did.

Thanks for the reminder though, I'm going to check through those settings again, just to make sure they're still tight, and haven't been re-opened by a software update or other "insecure by default" situation.

I can't imagine how far outside 'normal' this level of IT device maintenance is for regular folk.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#240

Post by plankers » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

codebje wrote: post #196

sidlls wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these apps exist because consumers expect them to be free and refuse to pay even a little bit up front. This "freemium casino" model of monetizing games and other apps arose out of the feedback loop that started with cheap consumer driven development. The consumer is not always right....

There's an interesting duality in that. Companies are choosing to maximise profits by tapping into addiction and gambling, and consumers are choosing to accept and reward that. I don't agree though that there's only up-front payment or freemium options on the table, nor do I agree that consumers wouldn't accept up-front payment if that was really on the table. Consumers paid up front for games on the Gameboy and othe…

Is the consumer expectation that mobile games be free on the publishers if they're responding to market conditions created by those same consumer expectations?

Seems to me like a chicken and egg problem where the entrenched nature of freemium games create a consumer expectation that games should be free up-front, causing consumers to avoid up-front payment, which causes up-front payment models to be less successful, which further entrenches the freemium game model, etc.

I agree with you on principle that it's up to publishers to make the effort to change this model, but I don't see how that could happen without some external nudging to overcome the market forces at work.