Wanton in-app purchases cost Alberta father thousands of dollars
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A father from Alberta, Canada, was hit with a bill for almost $5000 when his daughter repeatedly bought in-game items via In-App Purchases.
According to the father, Jerry Marion, his 18-year-old daughter became hooked to a freemium App Store title called "Township," and began buying its in-game items via the built-in In-App Purchase options. The game is free to download and play but heavily encourages players to spend money on in-game items.
The globalnews.ca article quoted the father as saying that the daughter "was confused about what she was buying and the fact that she was using real money." For Marion, those spending sprees reached as high as $250 a day, for a total of $4986.
Acknowledging that his daughter was dealing with social anxiety and feelings of isolation, which led to her buying these items, he reached out to Apple to ask for a refund twice. Both attempts were denied.
Only after Marion reached out to globalnews.ca that Apple relented and refunded him in full. He also reached out to "Township" developer Playrix but received no response.
The incident has given Marion insight into the addiction many In-App Purchase buyers struggle with. He now advocates for joint responsibility for parents and corporations to protect children from these purchases.
"[Parents] have to be more conscious of where we're setting up the ability to spend money," Marion told globalnews.ca, "I think she really understands now that as you go through these addictive cycles, you have to find ways to get out of them."
University of Calgary professor Tom Keenan agrees. "The algorithms are very powerful, so just about everyone falls for them at one point." Keenan further suggested that the business model of the freemium apps is to entice people to spend money and recommends parents and guardians to set up Parental Controls on their children's devices.
The incident follows a number of high-profile cases where children were enticed into spending large amounts of money on In-App Purchases. Back in December of 2020, a child spent $16,000 on the iPad title "Sonic Forces." More recently in June 2021, the child of a doctor spent $1800 on "Dragons: Rise of Berk," another freemium title.
23 Comments
18 is old enough to both vote and buy alcohol in Alberta. Not exactly an innocent child?
@rrabu
I’m assuming that she has some sort of cognitive impairment/disability. Though I could be wrong and perhaps she is just plain stupid…
I think Apple in the case of these sort of apps is just being greedy; there are so many cases of uninformed parents allowing kids to make purchases without understanding that there are millions of these predatory apps out there, ( though personally I think parents should be more proactive and educate their children as a lot of problems are down to lazy parenting.) moreover you have vulnerable people who don’t understand that they’re spending real money. Not to mention those with addiction issues. The money that must get wasted annually I’m sure is staggering. I feel Apple should just ban these sort of apps. There’s no excuse for charging 99.99 for a box of coins or a stupid costume etc. They’re laughing all the way to the bank. Apple has so many streams of revenue that they would be just fine without in game IAP. They’d also be setting a great example and potentially lead other companies to end the practice entirely - Much to the chagrin of devs everywhere I’m sure…
It's absurd that you can spend $250 a day on these junk casual games. Apple are allowing and profiting themselves from exploitation of addiction. Pretty shady.