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5-year-old boy spends over $2500 in 10 minutes on in-app purchases

by latestnewsheadline Banned
5 replies
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Digitaltrends: Covered by The Telegraph earlier today, 5-year-old Danny Kitchen of Warmley, England racked up a monster iTunes bill after spending £1,710.43 ($2,568.55) on premium add-ons for a free-to-play Apple iPad game called Zombies vs Ninja. Danny's parents, Greg and Sharon Kitchen, discovered the spending spree the following day after receiving a series of emails from Apple detailing charges for all the in-game objects purchased by Danny.
  • Profile picture of the author Rbtmarshall
    Aside form the kid that did this only being 5 years old.

    Free to play is definitely the platform of the now and future for multiplayer games. It entices this exact type of impulse buy. And will outperform a monthly set fee.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sam Woods
    I heard that Apple is going to cancel the bill, bit of a crazy amount for a 5 year old though! as for the type of billing its an ingenious way to pry people from their money. I would love to see his face when he found out though!
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  • Profile picture of the author hardraysnight
    if apple had any ethics whatsoever, they would have a minimum purchase age, oh well back to my chinese copy tablet and mp3 player
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    • Profile picture of the author Rbtmarshall
      Originally Posted by hardraysnight View Post

      if apple had any ethics whatsoever, they would have a minimum purchase age, oh well back to my chinese copy tablet and mp3 player

      Marketeers have figured out how to profit with apps, using kids as the access point.
      -make fun game for kids
      -enable in app purchases

      kids have their parents wallet right there in the game, open and ready to buy more shiny objects.


      The parents could have enabled restrictions and turned off in app purchases on their iphone before they let the kid play with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyMagnetMagnate
    I hope he has a good job after school...:p
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