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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 2 weeks ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 59 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

Holy shit the astroturfing in this comment section is crazy. If a 9 year old went into any other store and used a company card the store would reasonably refuse to sell 100k worth of goods. If the payment system Google implemented doesn’t even verify who is paying then that’s negligence on their part.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    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?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    It's only a valid point if you're talking about mobile app purchases where Google actually abuses parent/child financial decisions.

    Google's advertising business is a different story altogether. You're expected to spend quite a lot on campaigns, and not expected to hand control over to a child.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    In your comparison, the store would not see that it was a 9 year old

    It was the Google account of the dad, and he stored the company's card in his account payment details

    And spending 100k on something is not unusual for a company card, or a big company running an ad campaign

    You should also look up what astroturfing actually is

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  • [–] 0 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Meh, it's Google. They suck and can afford it.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    sure, I agree with that.

    doesn't change the fact that the credit card and ad service was used as intended

    If I stab myself with a knife, I don't blame the knife manifacturer about how shit they are because I stabbed myself by user error

    It's just a really shitty situation overall

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago*

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Didn't really need this analogy, as it's not as clear in this case, more like a child was able to start a run of papers on their own and cost the printer $100k running the printers for 15 minutes.

    Should they have been in the printers with access to the buttons? No

    But again it's Google

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    Should they have been in the printers with access to the buttons? No

    agreed, the kid absolutely should not have had access to it. And Google explicitly forbids it. But the dad put the kid in front of it anyway and said "you can use it, but only up to 20 bucks" and walked away

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  • [–] 26 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Fuck Google, but if you're advocating for them to do identity and age verification before buying services imma have to disagree

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    You should need to prove that the card is yours, at the very least. Like, that amount of money and nobody even reviews the content being made? That somehow a child has spent over 100k? It should never have been allowed to reach this point.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago

    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...

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    That the CC can be used without any form of validation seems to be a problem here.

    If Google would just verify the security code or something, couldve easily claimed the user made a willing purchase in such case.

    But removing such barriers is more profitable.

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