posted in Technology

Devastated father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft channel using a company credit card — bill racked up in just three weeks was supposed to be one $20

www.tomshardware.com/video-games/devastated-father-says-his-9-year-old-son-spent-usd118-000-on-youtube-ad-campaigns-for-his-minecraft-channel-using-a-company-credit-card-bill-racked-up-in-just-three-weeks-was-supposed-to-be-one-usd20-promotion

Replying to @⁨SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de⁩

I need to confirm my online purchases through my banking app. But I willingly dont connect my banking details anywhere.

I find it weird that payment details can be stored for one-click purchases later on. It is just so highly and easily abused.

We dont accept this kind of payment behavior at a store for obvious reasons, but online it is considered normal? I guess it maximises profits, which are important.

And when these carefully designed systems for low barrier purchases are abused by a child, all responsibility goes to the parent?

Wild how normalised this behavior is.

Replying to @⁨amzd@lemmy.world⁩

It was the dad who entered the card number. It was his fault. He created a Google advertising profile, but his business card on it, and then handed the reins to a child.

The biggest issue here is that dad thought he could embezzle $20 at a time, but accidentally did $120k all at once. lol. lmao even.

Lack of constant online surveillance is a good thing, btw. Expecting Google to have caught this doesn’t make any sense.

Replying to @⁨chewypoops@lemmy.world⁩

The guy you’re responding to has a valid point.

No way the son would get away with these actions at a physical store. “My dad was in here earlier, you saw him, i like to keep using his credit card tho, thanks”

Gee, I wonder why scamming is so huge after turning the digital market in to full “end-user responsibility” and tech companies removing carefully curated practices over the centuties for profit maximization.

Google earns billions of these scummy tactics to get users to spend as much as possible by removing any barriers of control and security. Why dont they get any of the responsibility?

Replying to @⁨Jax@sh.itjust.works⁩

The problem there is that the adult made the account and started the transactions and (presumably) completed all verifications required. This looks an awful lot like the parent is primarily at fault, doing just a little bit of sparkling embezzlement for his kid’s youtube career.

Now, the shoe on the other foot, I don’t think 9 year-olds should be allowed to be “content creators”. The whole thing just feels like child labor modernized. Which ends up in a strange place when I think about child actors, because it also feels like forced child labor but everyone seems to be OK with that apparently…