Comments on: My iTunes Account Was Hacked for $375 — By My Own Kids

By: christine

christine — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:53:43 +0000

This article has relieved me slightly. As of recent my 7 yr.old son has been purchasing .99 apps. and he will ask me to put in my password, of course myself verifying, this one is .99, right? “yes Mom”. Until I noticed the invoice receipts moments later in my email, the 1st one stating $99.99!! I thought certain that was an error and should have been .99. To my surprise there were 3 invoices totalling over $300 for trunks of coins for this zoo application. I am truly disturbed by all of this and am now awaiting a response back. I certainly hope this gets credited back to my account so I can pay my rent! Be very leary of this and learn from others mistakes. I had no idea a childrens app. has the ability of purchasing $100′s of dollars worth of coins!

By: Apple Faces Scrutiny Over In-App Purchases By Kids: Tech News and Analysis «

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 21:46:15 +0000

[...] the surprise of parents. My colleague Kevin wrote about this issue earlier after his step-daughter charged up $375 worth of virtual goods buys in a gaming app. There are parents controls that can limit children’s ability to make purchase, but there is [...]

By: What the Ringtone Era Can Teach App Distributors: Mobile Technology News «

What the Ringtone Era Can Teach App Distributors: Mobile Technology News « — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 17:00:36 +0000

[...] year ran up a $1,200 bill playing Tap Fish, and even my colleague Kevin Tofel has written about the time his step-daughter incurred $375 in charges through a free [...]

By: iOS 101: Manage Your Family’s iTunes Store Spending: Apple «

iOS 101: Manage Your Family’s iTunes Store Spending: Apple « — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:31:13 +0000

[...] they appreciate how quickly they add up when using an iOS device? Unprotected iDevices can lead to big accidental iTunes charges. Here’s how to stop that from happening to you and your [...]

By: Welcome Back From Summer Vacation! (You Call That a Vacation!?) «

Welcome Back From Summer Vacation! (You Call That a Vacation!?) « — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:00:24 +0000

[...] July 7: My iTunes Account Was Hacked for $375 — By My Own Kids [...]

By: Cyndy Aleo

Cyndy Aleo — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:23:12 +0000

Late to the party, as I only saw the post today. Gah on the $375, but it could be any parent, at any time, no matter how careful you are.

My ex and I were all set to upgrade our iPhones, pull the cards, and hand them over to the kids as elaborate iPod touches. That is, until the oldest, who is probably the most supervised child on the Internet ever, managed to get herself a Facebook account and a faked Gmail account. Whether it happened at a friend’s or somewhere else when one of us was still asleep is anyone’s guess (our laptops are both password-protected, but kids have ancient one at his house that isn’t, as do grandparents), but it did. Needless to say, we learned the lesson that she’s not ready to have an Internet-enabled device yet, and she won’t be getting anything she can hold in her hand as a result. But you were right; even the kids who are always supervised and have had everything explained to them are still going to test limits.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:34:15 +0000

I know I'm late to the conversation, but needed to add my experience. I am an iPhone developer with 2 apps in the store, so I'm no beginner, yet my daughter just spent $200 on in-app virtual goods.

The comments before mine are absolutely wrong. Apple has a real flaw in their system, an the current implementation of parental controls does not fix it.

When you disable purchases in parental controls, it dies NOT force a password when Pochards are attempted. It simply deletes them from access altogether my daughter uses MY phone, which means if I want to restrict use, I'm restricting my own use.

To make things worse, Apple only forces you to enter your password once, then allows several transactions in a row after it's been entered. My daughter doesn't have my password. If she wants an app, she asks me, and if I approve it, I enter my password, install the app, an hand the phone back to her to play.

Now comes the bad part. My password has just been entered, so she can purchase things within that app for a window of time without having to redbuds it.

PS- call me a bad parent to my face, in real life...

By: Cheryl Hanna

Cheryl Hanna — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:06:47 +0000

Yeah, I have a little problem with the repeated, careful identification of the child in question as a "step-daughter."

Apple is 50% at fault for allowing this. Also 50% you for not having things locked up tighter. Kid is the last to blame--and there seems to be no percentage left to assign to her.

By: The Daily Dose » Fishies in-app purchases are fishy

The Daily Dose » Fishies in-app purchases are fishy — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:19:20 +0000

[...] the pearls without any iTunes account information entered. There are other reports ranging from a 13-year-old purchasing $375 worth of virtual pearls (although in that case, the kid had Dad's iTunes credentials) to a Scottish [...]

By: Goobi

Goobi — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:45:20 +0000

You can blame the application for its deceptive nature. To a lesser extent you can blame Apple for approving this. Remember, for every in-app purchase, it throws up an iOS notification with the exact amount, and requires a password. It couldn't get clearer than that. You can mostly blame yourself, for not being careful with your virtual money.

But you cannot blame your daughter — yes, I said daughter, not 'step-daughter', is that so bad a thing? — for this error.

I do appreciate you writing about this though, so others can be a bit more careful with their kids.