10-Year-Old Spends Nearly 3,000 Euros on Roblox Platform
£2,500 Spent on Robux
Roblox, a gaming platform with over 200 million active users each month, is the latest platform to cause a financial headache for a parent. A ten-year-old girl from Denbigshire, UK managed to spend over £2,500 ($3,404 USD) on the platform, using micro-transactions to pay for her purchases.
Transactions Well and Truly Validated
The mother, Georgina Munday, a nurse, discovered the unauthorized transactions after noticing her daughter was spending increasingly more time on the iPad. Despite initially thinking her daughter’s account had been hacked, Munday found out that her daughter had managed to change the device password to validate these transactions.
Vigilance, the First Security Before All the Rest
After contacting both Apple and her bank in an attempt to claim a refund, Munday found no joy. However, after she turned to the BBC’s consumer support show, the matter was settled quickly, with the bank agreeing to refund the whole amount.
Both Apple and Roblox have tools in place to prevent unauthorized purchases, including parental controls, asking for approval for purchases, and time limits for in-app purchases. Despite these measures, the best way for parents to prevent unauthorized purchases and to stay safe online is to take an active interest in what their children are doing, participate and play with them.
Roblox, which allows users to create and share games for free, is available on iOS, Android, PC, Xbox One, and Mac platforms.