child runs up huge xbox debt!
- Thread starter Nodiggidy123
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It'll have been through XBox Live, which costs... £4.25 per 500 points.
If he spent, say £1,020 (I think the actual sum was around there?) then that would be... 240 lots of 500 points which is 120,000 points.
The most expensive games and DLC on Live usually cost 1200 points, don't they? So that would be 100 top whack games and add ons, or plenty more cheaper ones.
EDIT: Actual figure was £1,087. Round it to £1,088 (as that divides neatly by £4.25) and that's 128,000 points.
I kind of agree,
My point is, that family settings and locking the console down is flawed in many ways and unusable in some ways..
Also, if (and I need clarification), once CC details are on the 360, if you need no other interaction other then clicking the purchase button, i.e. don't have to enter CVC etc, then it's pretty reckless, what other paid service operates like this? All online requires you enter your password for most things, phone top ups also need some interaction, etc, etc..
I see two levels of responsibility on MS's behalf
1. If no intervention is required at all for CC transactions, they have a lot to answer for, as well as the parent
2. If there is some intervention, they still provide next to useless family safety functionality, it requires much savvy to actually prevent unauthorised transactions, as I mentioned, following the family safety and child account setup leaves a very blatantly open door..
Soldato
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Double post fail.
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Soldato
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As I said earlier, both Amazon and Steam can remember card details so that no validation is required for future purchases. I don't know the ins and outs of law surrounding it, but I'm pretty sure they don't have a legal requirement to have any validation.
End of the day though regardless of how good or bad the parental controls are, they weren't even turned on when this kid was spending money.
It is not microsofts responsibility to stop chilrdren from stealing from their parents, it's the parents fault.
Think of it this way. If the kid lifted £60 from his mums purse and spent it in Game. Should it be Game's responsibilty to stop this?
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I totally agree about parental responsibility, so that's not a problem,
However, no other service 'by default' operates in this way.
Amazon by default does not setup 1-Click, and even then, by default on mine, each new web sessions asks me for my password at some point before even 1-click works..
And I guess for steam, that you have to go out of your way to set it up..
And look what we are talking about, a games console, aimed at kids, that has such a poorly thought out mechanism, almost as if they want to make it this way to maximise the chances of people making mistakes/misusing it etc, and conveniently saying they provide some 'tools' to help you be a better parent or something, when it turns out, it's just as bad unless you happen to know it's not actually protecting you from unauthorised use unless you specifically find the hidden option to passcode protect your own account..
If everyone was 100% reliable, and every parent supervised their children 24/7 100% of the time, there would be no need for every other financial transaction system to have the default stance of requiring some password or CVC or something to stop transactions occuring..
I'm saying it's closer to 50/50 for me, I see what the parent did as bad, but I know some very un-tech savvy mum's out there, they don't understand a lot of this stuff, and this is a huge part of MS's marketbase, yet they go out of their way to put zero barriers in place out of the box, something no other financial transaction based system does..
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Agreed with this. "wah wah wah, have to work, wah wah wah"
Yeah, like the rest of us then. How is it remotely taking advantage?
You could simply substitute the entire article with: "I don't want to pay it, so am looking for a compo claim"
One other point, if it was over a long period how did she not realise her CC was being charged? Clearly you aren't struggling for money that badly if you don't even worry about a mounting credit card bill, with unauthorised spending! Having a broken laptop is a **** poor excuse, ask for paper bills, check at the library, use a friends internet connection etc etc.
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You want to look at what is actually said
She says partially to blame, so she's admitting it's also her fault, she's not out for compo.. nor admonishing herself, but don't let that stop people jumping to conclusions..
Yes it is IMO, there is a reason the default stance by all other financial transaction systems is to put passwords/CVC checks in place.
Yes they do IMO, since their default stance is so lapse, unless you actually realise this, you wouldn't even set up parental controls, and as I keep highlighting, going through their family safety setup still leaves the door wide open, how that isn't inviting issues from un-savvy people I don't know..
For the record, I don't think MS should give her money back unless it's out of goodwill, but they really need to change the way their family safety stuff works, and allow just the normal amount of checks before each purchase.
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I never had to do that? Perhaps stuff has changed. I always pay with a code that way I'm not tied into a contract and it's also generally cheaper.
I set up 2 child accounts last week, when it realises it's for children (from their DOB), it tells you it must be linked to an adult account, if the Adult account you specify doesn't have a CC on file, it will ask for CC details, it won't add them to the adult account, it just 'checks' you are over 18 by it..
Soldato
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I don't take issue that she isn't accepting some blame. I take issue that she isn't accepting all the blame. I still find it shocking that you think that she's only partially responsible for her child's actions.
The fact that Microsoft refused to reimburse her says otherwise that she's out to get her money back as well... Let alone rushing to the tabloids.
The PSN does the same does it not? I'm fairly sure I don't have to validate anything to make a purchase. I think you'll find while the majority do, it isn't all. As they're under no obligation to do so afaik, I fail to see why this imparts blame on them.
Give over. Firstly your point from before that the Xbox is aimed toward children is a bit "buh?" to to me. While kids are part of the target market, and you wouldn't think it given by all the screaming 12 year olds on Live, isn't the average age of an Xbox user something like 37? Pretty irrelevant to the subject though.
Microsoft aren't praying on the helpless, this isn't some scam to rake in money. This dozy cow is just trying to shift the blame onto someone other than herself.
You quoted her saying how people can't possibly expect to monitor their children 100% of the time, which is the one thing I do agree with. It's the exact reason you should bring your children up not to be little robbers that'll happily take a grand off you as long as they don't get caught.
I think we have quite different opinions, I have kids, I try and bring them up to quite high moral standards, yet despite everything, they've still done the odd naughty thing, and this is reflected by all parents I talk to..
There are bad parents, who don't give a crap, who actively encourage low moral standards etc, but actually, reading the article, she may be quite dumb, and very un-savvy with the console etc, but she chastised him when she found out, and he showed signs of severe remorse, this isn't fitting in with the picture you are painting..
Bottom line, the law doesn't hold children 100% accountable for their actions, nor does the law hold parents 100% accountable for their childrens actions for some valid reasons.. So it's not a stretch to think MS should have some element of blame (even if only morally) that they fail to recognise that children cannot be trusted 100%, no matter how well brought up, and provide default 'safety' for transactions..
Lets not argue too much over it, I've got TDU2 to play..
Soldato
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Don't get me wrong, I know kids can be naughty despite any parents best efforts.
I'm not saying that parents should raise their children to be moral robots at all.However.. I think what the child in the article has done has gone way beyond this. If he'd bought a small amount of points once or twice, I'd agree. Naughty, slap on wrist, sit on the naughty step.
But a thousand pounds though? Even if he was buying the points in their highest denomination (which he may well have done), the £50 pack for 6k points, that's still 20 individual purchases he's completed, as a minimum. This isn't just naughty any more.
Regarding him showing remorse... Of course he did. He got caught.
What kid wouldn't burst into tears at that point and say their sorry.
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I think we have quite different opinions, I have kids, I try and bring them up to quite high moral standards, yet despite everything, they've still done the odd naughty thing, and this is reflected by all parents I talk to..
There are bad parents, who don't give a crap, who actively encourage low moral standards etc, but actually, reading the article, she may be quite dumb, and very un-savvy with the console etc, but she chastised him when she found out, and he showed signs of severe remorse, this isn't fitting in with the picture you are painting..
Bottom line, the law doesn't hold children 100% accountable for their actions, nor does the law hold parents 100% accountable for their childrens actions for some valid reasons.. So it's not a stretch to think MS should have some element of blame (even if only morally) that they fail to recognise that children cannot be trusted 100%, no matter how well brought up, and provide default 'safety' for transactions..
Lets not argue too much over it, I've got TDU2 to play..
Man, believe me when I say I have no love for Microsoft - but even I think they are precisely 0% to blame for this in any way.
Stupid woman, stupid kid.
End of.
I set on up 3 weeks ago for a 14 year old, had to put his mums details in and no credit card details were needed!
Soldato
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I'm pretty sure he's right in this respect actually... You definitely need a card to create a verified adult account, and you can't create a child account without said adult account.
The card details aren't stored in anyway though. It's solely for verification.
well I didn't have too. I'd never set one up before as I only use mine offline but went and helped anyway.
He set his up while I told him what to do, put his DOB in then we were informed he needed an adult account which we also set up in his mums name.
Entered the code for his gold card, changed his gamertag name and then started adding friends and was playing it all night.
He set his up while I told him what to do, put his DOB in then we were informed he needed an adult account which we also set up in his mums name.
Entered the code for his gold card, changed his gamertag name and then started adding friends and was playing it all night.