Eight-year-old boy runs up £1,000 bill on parents iPad

[karl]

Theo Rowland-Fry bought the virtual donuts to progress on the game

It was a scene straight out of the famous cartoon, played out in real life.
When eight-year-old Theo Rowland-Fry decided he needed extra help to progress on his Simpsons iPad game Tapped Out, he thought nothing of buying the virtual donuts on offer.
However, in a typically Simpsons moment, his parents were left astonished to find that their son had completely cleared their bank account by racking up a £980 bill.


Full story here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2292539/Doh-Eight-year-old-boy-runs-1-000-parents-iPad-buying-virtual-DONUTS-Simpsons-game.html#ixzz2NQDA4aWs

[PinkFloyd]

Well that's not good...

[Gwen]

Not the smartest parents around, still seems silly to me to let an 8 year old play games. Make him/her read books or draw before he becomes consumed by relationships and the internet

[dyliwilli123]

Poor parents!

[drew6]

apple gave them a refund

[Jess]

Man, poor parents! Probably shouldn't have given it to the boy at that age...

[Twilly F. Sniper]

Spoiled child. I run zero dollars and zero cents; on nearly everything.

[NomSan]

This is why you disable Wi-Fi before giving it to children.

[Sir Suomi]

Wow. What exactly is that in U.S dollars?

[jessiecox1]

980 British pounds is about $1,478 US dollars.

[HunterSteele]

Spoiled child. I run zero dollars and zero cents; on nearly everything.
You also "run" the semicolon incorrectly.

I don't see how the child is spoiled since he purchased the in app donuts without realizing they cost money in real life. It's not like the parents said, "Your budget for Tapped Out donuts this month is £1000, so make it last."

This is why you disable Wi-Fi before giving it to children.
What difference does that make? Won't the purchase just go over the cellular network then?

[Professional Russian]

What difference does that make? Won't the purchase just go over the cellular network then?

I'm not sure if you can even get iPads 3G enabled and chances are it wasn't.

[PandaBear]

This is why you disable Wi-Fi before giving it to children.

Or... don't have your credit card information on file on the iPad. :P

[HunterSteele]

I'm not sure if you can even get iPads 3G enabled and chances are it wasn't.
They do make 3G iPads and since the article doesn't say if it was one or wasn't, it could well be. Even if it wasn't, the user can still reenable wifi.

Or... don't have your credit card information on file on the iPad. :P
You don't put your credit card information on the iPad. You add it to your Apple account and log into the account on your iPad.

What both of you are probably trying to suggest is they set Restrictions, which is a feature in iOS intended to prevent these sorts of things from happening.

[CharlieHorse]

I'm pretty sure there's an administrator option to stop in-app purchases...

[stev]

Now I see why apples so rich :p

[Mirage]

I'm pretty sure there's an administrator option to stop in-app purchases...

There is. These parents are partly to blame too, no?