Our children spent £950 on an iPhone game – but Apple won’t pay it back

MY 12-YEAR-OLD daughter was at a friend’s house recently and, while playing on the pal’s phone, they downloaded the game Genshin Impact through the Apple Family Sharing facility.

Although the parents had permission settings switched on, the girls managed to spend about £950 on game extras in a couple of hours, without understanding what they were doing.

The friend’s father reported it right away and has escalated the complaint many times, but Apple won’t sanction a full refund.

Both girls are autistic, which could be relevant. Please can you help?

Anon. You told me you found it extraordinary that the girls were able to spend so much money in such a short space of time on a computer game, but you felt the fact they are on the autism spectrum may have influenced their impulsive decision-making.

I asked Apple to investigate what had happened, as the friend’s father was certain that controls had been applied to prevent unwanted spending.

The company examined the sequence of events. It turns out the girls were buying the fantasy adventure game’s ‘loot boxes’, which contain a virtual currency called Genesis Crystals. This allows players to purchase additional items such as characters or other content designed to make the game more fun to play.

The pair spent between £12.99 and £89.99 on each box.

Apple found that its ‘Ask to Buy’ feature, which requests approval from the person who pays for such purchases, had indeed been set up last August. However, it had somehow been switched off a month later.

There was no activity shown on the account until the recent play date, when the purchases were made without the cardholder being tipped off beforehand.

Apparently, a password is also required for the transactions to go ahead.

Before I intervened, Apple had already refunded around £ 100 of the money. But once it had looked at the case again, on my request, it agreed to refund the remaining £850 as a goodwill gesture.

You are mightily relieved, as is your daughter’s friend and her father. He tells me that he has re-examined the parental controls on the family’s devices to prevent it from happening again.

This case serves as a cautionary tale for parents to check regularly that the desired settings are in place on their devices — and that they are working, as getting the money back is not guaranteed.

Here’s my game plan for avoiding unwanted bills:

ConsIder blocking access to game extras altogether, or at least set limits on the amount of money that can be spent.

AlwAYs keep passwords and any Id, as well as PIns, out of reach of children.

don’T let children register their own fingerprints or facial recognition on a phone or tablet.

These measures should allow you to screen any purchases before they are made.

If payments still go through, parents should receive emailed receipts (never set up an account with a child’s email address), which can alert them in time to stop further spending. of course, busy parents may not see these before it is too late.

Most importantly, and before you allow games to be downloaded in the first place, think about explaining to your children the consequences of getting carried away in a game and clicking on any additional content.

If they understand that adding extra characters or adventures to their game can cost real money, they might think twice about their actions.

I ORDERED an £80 dress online from Zara but, before it arrived, I saw the same garment in one of the shops and realised it was too long for me. So when the parcel arrived, I posted it back straight away, without even taking the tape off the box.

A few days later, Zara emailed to say the dress was ‘not in an unworn condition’, so the return was not accepted and the order was sent back to me.

I have looked over every inch of the dress and there is not a single mark on it.

Customer services told me there was a make-up mark and that they had taken a photo. I don’t wear make-up — and there isn’t a mark on it anyway. I asked for the evidence, but my request was declined.

I am a 53-year-old woman and, financially, I do not need to buy clothes, wear them and send them back for a refund. I am furious at the insinuation.

M. S., Chislehurst. ZArA’s approach seemed a little overzealous to me. But the retailer has recently introduced a £1.95 charge for returning online purchases to third-party drop-off points, such as the Post office, so perhaps it is cracking down on all areas of its returns policy.

I could only find an email address for Zara’s press team, so sent off a request for the retailer to look again at your complaint.

However, the strict no-returns rule it followed in your case also seemed to apply to my emails; I never received an answer.

But someone must have read them, because you were soon contacted by customer services and, after a bit of toing and froing, a refund was finally granted.

You returned the dress to the nearest store ( also saving on the £1.95 fee) and now have your £80 back in your bank account.

WRITE to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email sally@dailymail.co.uk — include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.