A father has been forced to sell his car after his son charged him around €1,500 (£1,300) in an hour playing the online game Dragons: Rise of Berk.
Mohammed, 41, who lives with his wife, Fatima, 37, and children Ashaz, Areef, and Aliyah, in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, was found to be in debt of €1,500 from a free online game.
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Mohammed became aware of the situation when he received 29 emails which were all purchase receipts for transactions ranging from £1.99 to £99.99 for the mythical monster training game Dragons: Rise of Berk.
The father, a doctor by profession, in order to pay off all of his son's purchases, was forced to sell the family car, a Toyota Aygo, to cover the £1,289.70 Apple iTunes bill.
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Shocked, Mohammed says: "At first I thought I had fallen victim to an online scam. I never thought it would be possible to spend so much money on a game."
Ashaz had been playing the free version of the game for at least an hour and Mohammed had no idea that the app offered unlimited in-app purchases up to £109.
Mohammed, visibly upset, complained to Apple who eventually refunded him £207.
"I said to customer service, 'Well done, you fooled me, you managed to fool an 11-year-old child into shopping,'" the 41-year-old emphasized.
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Apple would not comment on the case, but said it takes such incidents "very seriously" and urged parents to take the necessary precautions and protections for their children using electronic devices connected to the internet.
Parents should be very careful with their children who are connected to the internet because the risks are many and unpredictable.
Source: www.thesun.co.uk
