@juboner: Unfortunately, you can't charge your underage kid with fraud in this kind of situation. As for the bank putting a hold on your card, that's not how it works. The father in question most likely didn't agree for such measures in his contract. Some cards have limits, the one in the story obviously didn't have one or had it way above $8000. By default, and because the law requires it, the bank can (and must) only put a hold on the card without the card holder's permission if they suspect fraudulent activities such as the card getting charged hundreds of miles away as it's obvious that the card holder couldn't possibly be there since teleportation doesn't exist in real life. Some email services such as Gmail also warns users about strange activities, like if an IP address from very far away logged on your mailbox, or if two or more IP addresses were logged in at the same time.
If the the kid in the story was major, then the responsibility would be his and Microsoft wouldn't have been required by law to refund the father.
@NoahRoalson: No they shouldn't have. It's illegal to allow a minor to buy stuff with a credit card, so if Microsoft had refused to refund the guy, they would have been in deep trouble with the law. The law requires companies to refund parents if their children managed to circumvent security and buy stuff via credit card without the parents knowing. Think of it this way, if it's possible for a minor to buy stuff on your media device without the parents knowing, then there's something wrong with your device. It doesn't matter if the minor and parent in this story are stupid, as a company you shouldn't be allowing this kind of incident to happen on your device. In this kind of situation, the company is always at fault unless they can prove in court that the parent knew about their kid making purchases; and good luck proving that.
@Darkflare_EX: "Dad should be considered lucky to get the refund, companies aren't obligated to return that money for your negligence."
What you're saying is absurd. You should learn to know about the subject before talking through your hat like that. It's illegal to allow a minor to buy stuff with a credit card, so if Microsoft had refused to refund the guy, they would be in deep trouble with the law. The law requires companies to refund parents if their children managed to circumvent security and buy stuff via credit card without the parents knowing. Think of it this way, if it's possible for a minor to buy stuff on your media device without the parents knowing, then there's something wrong with your device. It doesn't matter if the minor and parent in this story are stupid, as a company you shouldn't be allowing this kind of accident to happen on your device. In this kind of situation, the company is always at fault unless they can prove in court that the parent knew about their kid making purchases; and good luck proving that.
The same goes with pretty much everything else. If a minor enters a casino and gamble his parent's money, the one at fault is the casino, not the parent. Casinos can't allow minors to gamble money no matter what, so they HAVE to refund everything or else face very dire consequences. If you think it's the parent's negligence that is at fault and not the casino, then there's something very wrong with you.
I'm not saying that the father in the article wasn't being irresponsible, because he was in fact very negligent in a very ignorant way, but that legally it doesn't matter.
@dribblesbarbax: I don't know about the rest of the world but where I live expiration dates on gift cards are downright illegal. Nevertheless, once you use up a prepaid card to fund your account, those funds are permanent. The law (and common sense) also requires the company to refund credits if they decide to put an end to the service. The law doesn't force companies to refund credit just because a customer asked it, however. This doesn't apply to reward programs in which you exchange points for free merchandise, although companies are required by law to warn customers about their program ending and give a clear explanation regarding what it means. The warning must come a reasonable amount of time before the program's termination, "reasonable" is left to interpretation however and if you think it wasn't reasonable and decide to go to court, the judge will be the one to decide. High traffic causing connection problems aside, the way how Club Nintendo's termination was handled was great in terms of ensuring that every customers understand what it meant and how much time they were given.
@packerfan7575: He's not lucky: the law requires companies to refund parents if their children managed to circumvent security to buy stuff via credit card without the parents knowing.
Your allusion to GTA made me think about my asshole uncle who bought his 6 years old kid games with intense violence, blood and gore, use of drugs and alcohol, strong sexual themes, strong language, etc. last Christmas. He even KNOWS that these games are meant for adults and is also AWARE of the aforementioned descriptors, and he thinks it's PERFECTLY fine. He even jokes about it saying how he buys very "educational" games to his kid. The guy is nuts and also a huge hypocrite full of contradictions: he always freaks out if someone even dares mention dirty words or talk about sex in front of his kid. Dude, you're doing much worse than that by allowing him to play these games! His kid still doesn't know what sex is, he doesn't even know about the penis inside the vagina. He doesn't even know that accepting candies from strangers is totally NOT fine. I tell you, he's going to be fucking traumatized after playing these games, some of them even banned in some countries. The kid even excitedly said in front of the whole family: "It's fun, there's a scene in the game in which a woman gets raped!" The reason for this being that I told my uncle in front of everyone that one of the games my cousin unwrapped had a scene in which a woman gets raped. It just goes to show how much he's a terrible father. Christmas was ruined because of him, although I personally hate the holiday in question, I enjoy spending time with my family and respect them for celebrating Christmas (compare to how Lisa Simpson tolerates her family eating meat). He still ruined our rare family reunion.
@ninja2481: But it WAS their fault, at least according to the law. It's illegal to allow a minor to buy stuff with a credit card, so if Microsoft had refused to refund the guy, they would be in deep trouble with the law. The law requires companies to refund parents if their children managed to circumvent security to buy stuff via credit card without the parents knowing. Think of it this way, if it's possible for a minor to buy stuff on your media device without the parents knowing, then there's something wrong with your device. It doesn't matter if the minor and parent in this story are stupid, as a company you shouldn't be allowing this kind of accidents to happen on your device. In this kind of situation, the company is always at fault unless they can prove in court that the parent knew about their kid making purchases; and good luck proving that.
@dribblesbarbax: You're the one having a problem if you can't stop making purchases because of left over cash. Are you also afraid of entering a retail store because you always feel the urge to spend all the cash you have in your pockets? I often go into a video game store with hundreds of dollars in banknotes with the intention of spending it on games I already decided to buy before even leaving the house. I always calculate the total money required and withdraw what I need plus a few more just to cover potential mistakes in my calculations (I don't want to end up not having enough money because of a miscalculation). I never feel the urge to spend the leftover cash on games I didn't plan to buy, even if said leftover cash is enormous because one or more games from my list were missing on the shelves.
The same goes with online shopping. I find it much more convenient to add funds in large increments instead of always having to manually buy everything with the precise amount of money. It just saves me time. I never feel the urge to empty my funds, sometimes I can have more than a $50 credit left on my account for months before I make a purchase. When I don't have enough credit to buy a game, I just add $100 to my funds; it doesn't matter if I don't plan on making other purchases anytime soon.
@flames325: The company is irrelevant, Sony isn't worse than Microsoft (at least on this particular issue). If you bothered reading the article, you'd notice that Microsoft refused to refund the guy until they learned that the one who made the purchases was a minor. It's illegal to allow a minor to buy stuff with a credit card, so if Microsoft had refused to refund the guy, they would be in deep trouble with the law. The law requires companies to refund parents if their children managed to circumvent security to buy stuff via credit card without the parents knowing. The guy in the story would have received a refund even if it was Sony. Think of it this way, if it's possible for a minor to buy stuff on your media device without the parents knowing, then there's something wrong with your device. It doesn't matter if the minor and parent in this story are stupid, as a company you shouldn't be allowing this kind of accidents to happen on your device. In this kind of situation, the company is always at fault unless they can prove in court that the parent knew about their kid making purchases; and good luck proving that.
If the person doing the purchases is major, then the responsibility goes to him/her. For the parent to get a refund, he/she would have to sue their child for fraud. In this case, the one who has the responsibility to refund the parent would be the credit card company. It's kind of like what I said earlier: if it's possible for someone to use someone else's credit card without the card owner knowing, then there's something wrong with your system. This means that the real victim here isn't the credit card owner but the credit card company because they have to refund the card owner and be the one to deal with the culprit.
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