A mom from Davao City got the shock of her life when her 8-year-old boy “unknowingly purchased mobile games” and charged at least Php100,000 on her husband's debit card.
In a public Facebook post last January 6, 2021, Julmar Grace Locsin, owner and CEO of a business consultancy firm and digital agency, shared that she luckily found out about the purchases because she was tracking bank statements for their finance team.
The mom had to Google the charges before she realized they were games. The purchases were made between January 4 and 5 and she initially thought it amounted to Php40,000.
According to the mom, her husband, Jay Locsin, handed over his old phone to one of their twins, Tice, last Christmas. Unfortunately, it was still connected to Jay’s Google account, and his debit card number and payment details were saved on the Google Play store, as they sometimes rent movies on YouTube.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW“We allow them Super Book times, Messenger Kids with cousins and friends, and War Robots,” the mom explains. (In the comments section, a netizen explained that some of the purchases were likely for the game War Robots which he says is a “money-hungry” game.)
Luckily, some of the transactions could still be reversed. The couple have already filed a request for refund and are waiting for the amount to be reflected back to their accounts.
Despite it being a “complete mistake,” the mom shares she and her husband still disciplined their son for downloading games without permission. “He reasoned that the old games were too easy for him and he thought all the downloads were free,” Julmar writes. “He cried a lot after we talked about it and forgave him. He was very sorry.”
The mom acknowledged that it was also a teachable moment, not only for her son, but for the parents, as well. “We explained that they are worth MORE THAN all the money in the world but following rules is also a good life skill,” she writes.
CONTINUE READING BELOWwatch nowShe adds, “We trust them and they are responding to discipline with the fear of God in their hearts… As parents, we discipline to correct the mistake but NOT to equal our affection for our kids to the value of money or anything in this world.”
As for the couple, they have already added parental controls on the phone and placed a password for in-app purchases.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOWThis is not the first time that a child accidentally purchased huge amounts online using their parents' card. In November 2020, a South Korean dad shared that their 11-year-old child spent around 130 million won or 5 million pesos buying ‘gifts’ for live streamers.
And just before Christmas in December, a toddler bought Php4,000 worth of toys from Shopee.
“Lesson learned: Don’t show a child how to order online so they won’t learn it,” netizen Marloue Mahumot wrote in Bisaya in his viral Facebook post.
Keep this in mind the next time you let your little ones borrow your phones, moms and dads!
How to make sure your old phone is safe for your child to use before handing it over? Click here for some tips.
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