A six-year-old boy made in-app purchases worth about $16,000 on an iPad this summer. Apple refused to issue a refund to the boy’s mom who failed to report the problem to the company within the required period.
The child reportedly did not know he was spending real money to get access to plenty of characters and faster speeds in Sega’s Sonic Forces.
Jessica Johnson of Wilton, Connecticut found a series of withdrawals made from her credit card over a series of months, posted by Apple’s in-app purchasing system.
After discovering the charges, Jessica reported it as fraud to Chase.
Jessica said she thought the charges were fraud and called the bank after discovering the missing cash.
“The way the charges get bundled made it almost impossible [to figure out that] they were from a game,” Jessica told The New York Post.
Findings of the probe, however, confirmed that the purchases were authentic, and Jessica had to directly address the matter with Apple.
The purchases were found to be made by Jessica’s youngest son, George, who was repeatedly acquiring in-game currency for the game Sonic Forces.
