11 Year old managed to purchase up to €642,76 of Gems - please advise :(

Hi

I've contacted support via the in game app but no reply..

I've contacted Google Play and they've told me to contact the developer direct - tried that so I'm now here in an open forum..

This evening my son complained that he could not telephone any of his friends - we contacted Unitymedia our mobile carrier and they told us that our sons phone had been disconnected due to high amount of telephone usage. This led us to investigate further as to how our son had accumulated such a high telephone bill "Over €640". I managed to search his telephone browsing history and this gave me information leading us to beleive he had been billed by O2.

Further investigation and talking with our son we found out that he had been playing the game "Clash of Clans" without our authority or authorisation he had been purchasing items such as "Sacks of Gems" raging from €4,49 through to €17,99 amounting to a total of €642,76 over a period from 5th April 2014 until today 13th May 2014 using O2 Bill Pay!

My Son is 11 years old - He had no idea that he was purchasing items at cost. My son is not in any position to make such authorizations, we as his guardians are the ones that agree to such terms and in this case we clearly did not!

€642,76 is a lot of money and we would like that this sum be reversed by means of refund!

please advise!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MartinJD

Hi

I've contacted support via the in game app but no reply..

I've contacted Google Play and they've told me to contact the developer direct - tried that so I'm now here in an open forum..

This evening my son complained that he could not telephone any of his friends - we contacted Unitymedia our mobile carrier and they told us that our sons phone had been disconnected due to high amount of telephone usage. This led us to investigate further as to how our son had accumulated such a high telephone bill "Over €640". I managed to search his telephone browsing history and this gave me information leading us to beleive he had been billed by O2.

Further investigation and talking with our son we found out that he had been playing the game "Clash of Clans" without our authority or authorisation he had been purchasing items such as "Sacks of Gems" raging from €4,49 through to €17,99 amounting to a total of €642,76 over a period from 5th April 2014 until today 13th May 2014 using O2 Bill Pay!

My Son is 11 years old - He had no idea that he was purchasing items at cost. My son is not in any position to make such authorizations, we as his guardians are the ones that agree to such terms and in this case we clearly did not!

€642,76 is a lot of money and we would like that this sum be reversed by means of refund!

please advise!

---

It might be worth raising it via the in game support.

Edit : sorry misread your post. If you've tried google and in game support. I'm not sure what else can be done.

which country are you from and what does the law say in your country regarding people below a certain age buying things ?

Germany - I'm British but my wife is German...

Are you sure all these charges are not data charges from O2?

Is O2 from UK but you're using the phone in Germany (ie: high telephone and data charges)?

With Apple you pay for gems using your Credit Card, nothing to do with the carrier so shouldn't get disconnected.

I think that O2 will be your best port of call here - I cant imagine that Supercell would be able to refund you as they didnt effectively take payment in the first place...

For what its worth - the gems are in a section marked 'Shop' and have a price per package shown underneath them - this then leads to a confirmation page from Google Play also displaying the price of the purchase. . I suspect that being caught may have had some impact on whether your Son was aware or not ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MartinJD

Germany - I'm British but my wife is German...

---

I'm German, too.

regarding the laws in our country :
An 11 yo is not 'geschäftsfähig'. (He does not have the legal capacity to do any kind of business without parental aproval, inlcuding buying things for an amount of money larger than the average pocket money of somebody that age).
If somebody takes that much money from a person of that age without the parents approval, the person or party has to give back all the money if requested by the parents. It simply is not legal for anybody to sell things for such a high price to an 11yo without having the parents approval.

check wikipedia :
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesch%C...ge_ab_7_Jahren

If the party that sold things to your underage son is not reacting quickly, just get a lawyer and get all your money back for sure :)

Clash of Clans is a free to play game but requires constant internet access.

Of course you can buy gems to speed up play inside the game, but these are normally separate and not required to play.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stitch

Are you sure all these charges are not data charges from O2?

Is O2 from UK but you're using the phone in Germany (ie: high telephone and data charges)?

With Apple you pay for gems using your Credit Card, nothing to do with the carrier so shouldn't get disconnected.

---

My sons phone is registered to Unitymedia - Some How his Number via 02 has been charged for the transactions, I can see all the transactions via Google Play. We have 02 in germany...

On most mobile handsets, you can restrict in-app purchase or activate parent controls. They may refund you but you may need to prove it was your son who purchased ''All'' the gems and that can be tricky