Six-year-old spends Rs 11 lakh on video game from mother's credit card; Apple refuses refund

George Johnson went on a shopping spree on the app store for his favourite video game called Sonic Forces

After scores of PUBG users sent their families in shock and near bankruptcy with in-app purchases, a six-year-old in the US spent nearly $16,000 (roughly Rs 11.8 lakh) from his mother's credit card to purchase more superior features on his favourite video game Sonic Forces.

Christmas came a tad bit early for George Johnson, who went on a shopping spree on the Apple app store for his favourite video game Sonic Forces, and bought in-app additions worth over Rs 11 lakh, according to a New York Post report.

Unaware of the financial burden of her son's virtual arsenal bought over the month of July, his mother filed fraud claims after she saw that Apple and Paypal were withdrawing huge sums of money from her account.

It wasn't until October that she realised the expenses were hers and that she needed to contact Apple. "The way the charges get bundled made it almost impossible (to figure out that) they were from a game," she said.

Apple, however, told her that they couldnt do anything as she contacted the company 60 days after the transaction. " The reason I didn’t call within 60 days is because Chase told me it was likely fraud — that PayPal and Apple.com are top fraud charges” the mother said.

Apple informed her of preventive settings on the app but refused to waive the charges.

Blaming Apple and game designers for making the games predatory in nature and tempting kids to buy features, she said "He’s playing a cartoon game in a world that he knows is not real. Why would the money be real to him? That would require a big cognitive leap," she said.

As for the child, he was quoted as saying, "Well, I’ll pay you back, mom."