A young Fortnite fan has been called out by their parent on Reddit after blowing nearly $20,000 of their savings on Twitch donations.
In a post shared to r/Twitch, a parent by the name of terrikgm shared a worrying story in which their child had used their life savings to donate to their favourite streamers and subscribe to channels.
Though Twitch is free to use on the surface, consumers can choose to donate to people whose content they enjoy, or they can also subscribe to streamers for a fee, usually with differently priced tiers available. Subscribing unlocks additional content, emoticons or other goodies than non-subs don’t get, and the higher the tier you subscribe at, the more extras you’ll unlock. Subscription costs can range from around $5 USD to $30 USD a month, meaning it’s fairly easy to sink some big money into Twitch if you’re subscribing to various channels – and especially if you’re donating on top of that.
The Reddit parent explained their situation in a post which has now garnered a lot of attention. They wrote: “My minor child spent almost $20k using a debit card on subscriptions & donations, cleaning out my bank accts without my knowledge or permission. Years of savings gone in 17 days.”
The user went on to explain that they’d yet to receive a response from Twitch’s customer service, despite claiming to have contacted them over two weeks ago. The post has now been flooded with people suggesting the user contact their bank, though at the time of writing, it’s not clear whether a refund has been issued.
We’re used to seeing XXL transactions from minors with microtransactions, but it’s pretty rare to see a Twitch subscriber splurge on this scale. Hopefully this isn’t something that’s going to continue for other families!
20k in donations by minor in 17 days from r/Twitch
Featured Image Credit: Epic Games/Twitch