12-year-old spends £900 on Farmville - using Mum's credit card

[Juicy-Lucy]

From YahooUK

 

 

A 12 year-old British boy has used his mother’s credit card to make purchases exceeding £900 in Facebook’s popular agriculture game, Farmville.

 

In fairness, the lad plugged £288 of his own savings into this ill-advised investment. The rest of it was all on his mum’s plastic, though, and was spent completely without her knowledge:

 

“The first use of my card was on 14 March,” she tells The Guardian.

 

“I discovered it on the 29th and the card was stopped at that point. Any transactions after that date were already in the system, so what I thought was a £427 spend turned into £625 over the next few days.”

 

And the rest, as they say, is history – just like the boy’s chances of ever being allowed back on the home computer again. To add insult to injury Facebook, which hosts the game, has cancelled the boy’s account too. Perhaps that’s because, at 12 years old, he’s actually too young to be playing it.

 

Meanwhile it appears that the possibility of a refund from either the credit card company or the game’s makers is slim, since the credit card was supposed to be the mother’s responsibility. However HSBC, the card issuers, has said it may consider reimbursing the woman if she decides to file criminal charges against her son.

 

“Obviously the idea of a stupid farm simulation jeopardising his future earnings is not something that I want to consider,” is all she had to say about that proposition.

 

So how did the lad himself account for his wayward spending spree?

 

“...they had brought out good stuff that I wanted.”

 

 

........ Wow.

[boyfriday]

It's a shame he didn't invest the money in real livestock!

[SimpyTimpy]

The real story in this is that FarmVille wont refund the money, but have now closed his account (along with Facebook closing his account).

 

The fact a 12 year old used a credit card online is as much an issue with the lack of verification checks on cards these days as it is with him using it in the first place.

 

He's 12... he'll learn from this mistake and move on.

[Location114]

This story is shocking but I remember a while ago an 8 year old thought shed buy a £9000 car on her mums bank card via ebay.

 

Luckily the sellers saw the funny side in it and left it at that but still as people say its too easy for people to do it these days.

 

I have a bank account but i just dont use it because im not comfortable with the amount of security that banks offer these days.

[Rupert_Baehr]

He is 12. He can't enter into a contract to buy anything other then 'necessities'. (I've no idea what 'farmville' is, but I suspect the vendor might have some difficulty in persuading a court that it is a 'necessity' )

 

He can't enter into a contract and he can't use his Mum's credit card for that contract which he couldn't enter into anyway.

 

I expect that the credit card issuer will decline to pay whoever it was (mis)sold the item to the child. The Mum can't be held liable and the child can't be held liable (no point in trying to sue him) so it would be far simpler to forget the whole incident.

[Pidgeon]

What was the morther thinking, leaving the credit card lying around?

[the_rudeboy]

What was the morther thinking, leaving the credit card lying around?

Who says she left it 'lying around'? And what do you class as lying around? Do you have a safe that you keep your wallet/purse in when at home?

[LibertyBell]

At least he's a child. I can't believe the moronic adults who pollute my page with this ********.

[CorkerSWFC]

Classic story, they always said plastic can get you in debt, it seems to have happened in more ways than one here lol.

[Northrend]

farmville is one of those games on facebook.. And I have no time for games on facebook..