Father holds Microsoft accountable for son's £1,150 Xbox Live bill
Published Jul 14 2012, 01:19 BST | By Scott Nichols
A father discovered that his son had accumulated £1,150 ($1,800) in charges on Xbox Live and is now holding Microsoft to blame.The Daily Mail reports that the 12-year-old boy thought he was using in-game currency earned from killing enemies in a Call of Duty title and scoring goals in a FIFA football game.
© Activision
© EA
Instead, the purchases were made using his father's credit card, which was stored on the system when the family paid for an Xbox Live subscription so that the boy could play games online with his friends from school.
The father, Sam Ghera, only discovered the charges on his credit card when he went to the bank and found that his account had been overdrawn.
"When I went through my statement I saw that they were charges for Xbox Live," he said.
"I didn't even know that it was storing my information, and even if that thought had entered my head I would have thought there would be something in place so it wasn't so easy to spend money."
No password is required to make purchases over Xbox Live using credit card information stored on the system.
It should be noted though that the system does offer parental controls which can block child and teen accounts from making purchases over Xbox Live.
Making a purchase on Xbox Live always brings up a pop-up window asking the user to confirm that they are making a purchase with their credit card. However, this is often confusing to users since they are technically buying Microsoft points, a virtual currency that can then be used to obtain downloadable content, rather than the items themselves.
It is unclear exactly what was purchased with the Microsoft points charged to the account. The Daily Mail reports that it was spent on additional weapons for Call of Duty and player enhancements in FIFA, however those are not items offered to purchase over Xbox Live.
There are several multiplayer map packs for the various Call of Duty titles and downloadable expansions available for the FIFA football games, however all downloadable in-game content combined across all titles in those franchises totals less than £300.
It is advised that parents take advantage of the parental control settings included on video game consoles.
What an idiot! Firstly, does he not know what a subscription means? Secondly, he is being trolled by his son - of course the kid knew you had to pay for it - it's no hidden secret. Gullible!
July 18th 2012 at 8:18pm
Another first class triumph for stupidity over common sense!
July 16th 2012 at 10:31pm(+2 likes)
You signed the terms and conditions, it's your loss you didn't read the small print. It's times like this when skipping it can really bite you in the ass.
July 16th 2012 at 10:17pm(+2 likes)
"My child walked into the road and got knocked down, simply because I did not teach him how roads work, now I am suing the Highways Agency for not putting controls in place to stop this from happening."
No one to blame but yourself. The Xbox live system is easy to understand and if you let a 12 year old loose on it, he is going to click on whatever "ok" buttons are on the screen. Also the system does confirm that it is "storing" your credit card details, but if you skipped the terms & conditions without reading, you wont know this.
Or.... in what is most likely, the kid knew what he was doing and chanced his luck.
Either way, still the parents fault.
July 16th 2012 at 8:39pm(+4 likes)
rubbish. you always need to " confirm " and in some instances enter the security number, the father will not win, the boy is to blame not microsoft
July 16th 2012 at 9:03am(+1 like)
you need to confirm to buy points but you do not need to enter your security number if you agree to keep it stored, think its about time microsoft dropped the points system and use currency....i mean you dont see high street shops or sites like play.com offering games for points do you!
July 16th 2012 at 10:46am