624
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)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
206 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 98 points 1 week ago (26 children)

The dad was a dummy. First, your little kid shouldn’t have a YouTube channel. Second, you don’t use a company card to buy Robux. That’s a moronic thing to do. Might have gone unnoticed but then he got careless with it and it came back to bite him. Bad parenting all around. Don’t blame the kid, blame the dad. Hopefully he learns a hard lesson and can find new work.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 26 child comments
    •
  • [–] 96 points 1 week ago (9 children)
    • 9 yo Kid is making vidya
    • Doesn't have many viewers
    • Want to make kid happy
    • Spend 20 $ on ads
    • maybe_a_couple_views.png
    • Three weeks later
    • I'm literally 118 009 $ in debt

    MFW

    Honestly, if you can't understand how absolutely debilitating this is over a tiny misstep, I hardly know what to say. People commit manslaughter and get off easier that this. It's in no way reasonable to say that "Oh, you shouldn't have used the company card to pay 20$ for your kid - you deserve life-ruining debt".

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 38 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Allowing a child to associate their happiness with view counts is a terrible idea. Already too many sociopaths in "content creation" as it is.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    Sure, I'm not advocating for doing what he did, regardless how he paid for it. I'm putting myself in the shoes of a young father that just wanted to make his kid happy and didn't properly consider the bigger picture.

    People buy their kids all kinds of things that are bad for them with the best intentions. We usually don't conclude that they deserve debilitating debt as a consequence.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 30 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    a tiny misstep

    Multiple colossal missteps.

    you shouldn't have used the company card to pay 20＄ for your kid

    Correct. He should have spent $0 on a company credit card for his kid. He could have spent $20 from his own personal card, which presumably would have more reasonable limits. He should have ensured the card required a pin to use so that unauthorized charges couldn't accrue.

    I feel bad for him, too, but he's incredibly stupid and I don't see why anyone else should have to cover his ass for his own fuckup.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    As far as I can tell none of my cards have any single limits. When I remodeled my house I charged 45k to one to buy materials and pay contractors.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    You have a credit limit so you can't have a balance above it. You can easily spend 45K of you keep paying off, though

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    These companies literally design their product with the intention of making people overspend. As long as micro transactions have existed, the problem of kids over spending their parents money because they were allowed a single purchase has been a problem.

    The companies in question are making bank off this. They know it's an issue, and they actively exploit it to make more money. It's extremely unethical.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 13 points 1 week ago

    Yeah I'm with you.

    An extra $100k debt as a young dad will absolutely change your retirement dramatically.

    Yes this guy fucked up but the detrimental outcome is not commensurate with the fuck up.

    It would be trivial for Google to detect that something is likely wrong with this account, and not doing so is predatory. I'm sure they make many millions in this way every year.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    At the same time, all my coworkers leave their shit logged in all day at several computers walk around and use random computers logged in with other people's stuff and they look at me like im an asshole because i put a lock screen password on my machine. (Im the one doing what's actually written in the employee handbook of course).

    So yeah, i yearn for the day they make a six figure fuck up because of shit like this.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 51 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 child)

    Blame the dad

    Honestly, it shouldn't be legal to pull more than like 100 USD off a card without re-verifying the card holder. Fuck these companies that take your card once and have no fucking limit on how much they'll pull from it without verifying it's you.

    Sure, you should have a limit on your card. That doesn't make it okay for others to exploit you when you make an obvious mistake. Let's not pretend these companies aren't aware how much money they're making off people's kids spending more money than they're allowed to.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 27 points 1 week ago

    Yeah the guy fucked up. Id also say the company fucked up if they didn't have the cards auto sending receipts from purchases somewhere as well. (Then again it could have been an option the father didn't have on once again). Anytime I've had a company card for something I would turn on all the notifications and input everything into the ADP app or whatever system they are using right away. I wouldn't even walk out of the store without taking a picture of the receipt to upload it to make sure if I lost thr receipt I wasnt going to be screwed. You're spending money that isn't yours, that shit will bite you.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [+] -33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

    I bought jewelry with a company card so my SO wouldn't see it on the statement. Paid that off immediately, no cost to the company. My boss was fucking LIVID and chewed me out later. I still have no clue why it mattered but I never did that shit again.

    Edit: Damn, the corporate bootlickers really came out of the woodwork for this one. No harm no foul but chew me out again boss.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 12 child comments
    •
  • [–] 40 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    It matters because accounting has to ledger expenses and balance books. Its a super pain when an employee makes a non work expense and then maybe uses cash to pay off instead of the intracompany accounts, because then the outgoing and incoming doesn't zero out...usually needs a manual books adjustment to account for the discrepancies.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 13 points 1 week ago

    To add on to this: If your company is not tiny, then having properly managed accounts is literally a legal requirement in most countries and having people make random, not accounted for purchases raises questions.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 24 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    It wasn't your money to spend?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [+] -24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    It was a credit card. I paid it off with my money. I did not spend their money, only used the card.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 14 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Accounting is a big problem.
    And you can say it was jewelry for your girlfriend - but realistically it could have been literally anything else. I'm not saying illegal dugs - but it sounds really shady and it puts the responsibility on the company.
    With prior communication it might had been okay with your boss, or he would have lent you his personal card for this.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago

    It mattered because he could have fired you for cause on the spot, our entire legal/financial system is built on the assumption that you don't mix business money with personal money. Your company accountant(s) had to write a paragraph explaining to the auditors how you made an innocent misclick mistake and company policy is very clear that they don't do that, otherwise the auditors would have not signed your company's financial statements.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Bunch of people explaining why it matters legally and financially, your only takeaway is they're bootlickers. Yes, YTA.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    I mean pretty much. This is some real drop in the bucket low level stuff so the over reaction here is surprising. Just for that Im gonna go steal some pens tomorrow too.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    You caused additional costs to the company by making them do extra work. Do not underestimate how obnoxious accounting can be.

    That's not a defense of corporations, it's an explanation of why they will get mad, and why it often is a firing offense if you do it for a large sum (because then it might even impact taxes as it can be viewed as compensation, or as a loan)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent