Six Year Old Spends $16,000 On Sonic Forces

A six-year old child has spent more than $16,000 (about £12k) on in-app purchases while playing mobile video game Sonic Forces.

Sonic next to lots of dollars
Credit: SEGA/Unsplash

The boy, named George, who racked up the insane total number of in-app purchases, had his mother believing that they were victims of fraudulent activities.

Anyone that plays most mobile games will know how easy it is to make in-app purchases with some starting less than £1 and some exceeding the hundred pound mark.

We even see this practice in many AAA video games, and over the course of weeks and months, even that seemingly small £1 purchase can quickly add up.

Six-year-old George, whose spree apparently began in July of this year, was simply pressing the icons to buy boosters in Sonic Forces and obviously being at such a young age, a true concept of money is pretty much non-existent.

By July 9th George had generated a bill of over $2,500 solely on in-app purchases. Under the assumption that this was fraudulent activity, parent Jessica had received charges totalling $16, 293.10 by the time October had arrived.

image from sonic forces mobile
Credit: SEGA

With the individual cost of the transactions not being clear on her statement, it was not obvious to her that the in-app purchases were coming from her son playing Sonic Forces as the charges were being withdrawn from Apple and PayPal.

The way the charges get bundled made it almost impossible [to figure out that] they were from a game,” said Jessica.

With the charges starting from less than $1 and increasing over such a short period of time, Jessica compared the situation to a drug addiction: “like my 6-year-old were doing lines of cocaine — and doing bigger and bigger hits.”

So when Jessica was still under the impression that she was a victim of fraudulent activity she filed a fraud claim and it wasn’t until this that the six-year-old son revealed that it was he that was making the purchases.

Contacting Apple confirmed that George had totalled up the huge bill while playing Sonic Forces.

image from sonic forces mobile
Credit: SEGA

However, according to Jessica, Apple was not very understanding of the situation and despite her not knowing of settings that would prevent in-app purchases being made, the blame was to be placed on the parent.

Apple reportedly refused to help Jessica as she didn’t contact them within 60 days of the in-app purchases being made and, despite informing Apple that she could no longer pay their mortgage, Jessica said that the company responded simply by saying: “There’s a setting, you should have known.”.

Jessica informed the New York Post that had she known about in-app purchases and protection settings that prevented such purchases being made, this problem wouldn’t have occurred.

Obviously, if I had known there was a setting for that, I wouldn’t have allowed my 6-year-old to run up nearly $20,000 in charges for virtual gold rings,” said Jessica.

These games are designed to be completely predatory and get kids to buy things, What grown-up would spend $100 on a chest of virtual gold coins?

sonic
Credit: SEGA

Jessica believes that the blame lies with Apple: “My son didn’t understand that the money was real. How could he? He’s playing a cartoon game in a world that he knows is not real. Why would the money be real to him? That would require a big cognitive leap.

It’s certainly a very difficult situation to be in, and to be fair, parents that do not game might not know of how free-to-play games are monetised and how easy it is for anyone to make in-app purchases, no matter how young the gamer.

So if you have young kids that will play on phones, tablets and even consoles, please check the parental settings to avoid this ever happening to you. What do you think about six year old George and his Sonic Forces spending? Should the blame lie with the parent, or with Apple?

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Featured Image Credit: SEGA/Unsplash