With all the backlash that companies like Apple and Google have received over in-app purchases and how easy it is for kids to rack up insane amounts without knowing, both companies have put mechanisms in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Unfortunately it seems that despite Apple’s best intentions, a report from Belgium has revealed that a 15-year old teenager has managed to rack up a whopping $46,000 in in-app purchases.
According to the report, the teen was playing a free-to-play iOS game called Game of War: Fire Age. However he was later asked to purchase some e-books and his mother gave him her credit card, and from there he discovered that he was able to buy in-game gold using real money, which unfortunately led to him spending so much money as a result.
The reason it went so high is because there was no system in place to confirm the transactions, and that all the teen had to do was keep tapping the purchase button, although this is a bit odd as we have mentioned earlier, Apple has since put certain restrictions and mechanisms in place to prevent such abuse.
That being said, the Belgian Gaming Commission has since called for stricter rules to prevent future incidents like this from happening again. Over in the US, Apple has been put to task by the FCC regarding in-app purchases and have since offered refunds to parents affected by it.