Mum’s warning as daughter, 10, spends £2,500 on Roblox
A WELSH mum has spoken out to warn others after her daughter spent more than £2,500 on the gaming site Roblox.
Georgina Munday’s 10-year-old daughter, Primrose, didn’t tell anyone she had changed the password on the family iPad.
The game allows users to create their own games but also offers inapp purchases to upgrade the user’s avatar with things like clothes or accessories and offers some pay-toplay games.
Roblox says it has a “robust policy” on unauthorised payments, but Georgina, from Dyserth, Denbighshire, found out her daughter had managed to change the password to allow payments. They were transactions of around £20, but added up to more than £2,500.
Georgina went to the BBC Radio Four programme You and Yours after Tesco Bank initially refused a refund, but after it was brought up on the show, the bank reconsidered and apologised.
The 44-year-old nurse told the programme: “We’d just seen hundreds of transactions, these payment confirmations, so then the panic set in – oh my gosh, whose card is this on?
“”It was a really stressful time. I am not working at the minute, I am looking after my daughter. The last few months have been quite stressful, so maybe we have had our eye off the ball. I just thought I would have to pay it off in instalments over the next few years.
“I rang up Tesco Bank and they said, because it was my daughter, they couldn’t do anything about it. So I tried Apple again – they just read me their terms and conditions. So that’s when I contacted the BBC, You and Yours, consumer programme.”
Georgina said she “cried with relief” when Tesco Bank confirmed they would refund the full amount a day after the programme-makers got involved.
Apple has pointed out there are ways accounts can be set up to alert parents before a child wants to make a purchase.
Tesco Bank told the BBC: “We’ve carried out a further review of this case and have now agreed with Ms Munday that we’ll refund her the full amount. We apologise to Ms Munday that this wasn’t arranged for her when she first contacted us, and we’ve therefore also organised an additional payment to her as a gesture of goodwill.”
Meanwhile, Georgina is warning other parents to be vigilant.
“She knew what she was doing, she changed the password but I don’t think she understood the enormity of it,” she says. “Children are one step ahead of parents these days. We thought this Roblox game was quite innocent. It’s a whole world out there on this Roblox that we knew nothing about.”
On the Roblox website there is a section on safety and they point out there are several ways for parents to monitor account activity.
It says: “Roblox has a robust policy for processing refund requests where there may have been unauthorised payments from a person’s account. This process is detailed in our help centre.
“Parents also have access to a suite of Parental Controls.”