Apple Refunds the Accidental $6k iTunes Bill of an Eight-year Old

It seems that in-app purchases are quickly becomming more of a hassle than they’re worth. Already we have seen two different accounts of major accidental in-app purchases ranging in the thousands of dollars (1), (2) and the stories just keep rolling in. It seems almost as though numerous parents are learning nothing when Apple issues statements about turning on restriction features in iOS to prevent such mishaps.

The latest story comes from an eight-year old U.K. daughter that knew the iTunes password to her father's iPad and purchased way too many in-app purchases from the free My Horse game for the iPad. According to the report, the daughter managed to purchase nearly $6100 in add-ons over a five-month period. The 43-year old father, Lee Neale, never even knew it was happening until he was locked out of his bank account due to the lack of available funds.

To make things worse, all of the receipts that Apple would normally send via e-mail were being sent to work e-mail that the fathersupposedly didn’t have access to at the time of the incident. The bank had never notified Neale of the frivolous spending either, so as one could imagine, the rather large sums of disappearing money may have been the main cause for alarm.

Neale tried the only thing he could do and contacted Apple to try and get a refund. Apple reportedly dismissed the father saying there was nothing they could do about the situation, and understandably, Neale was upset:

Lily is only eight and hasn't grasped the concept of money. She probably wouldn't know how much a bag of crisps costs.

I was very surprised how dismissive Apple were. This was an eight-year-old girl. Basically iTunes have told me categorically that I won't be getting my money back. I am also disappointed that my bank didn't alert me to what was going on.

Fortunately, four days later, Apple called the father back with a changed mind after he had contacted the local newspapers:

Apple called me to say they will be refunding the money I have lost and apologised for closing my case so early. It really has saved my bacon.

Apple refunded all of the money back the parent after having reminded him of the restriction features in iOS to prevent these catastrophes from happening. We think he will probably start using them from now on...

Notably, Apple has been taking steps to help make app-buyers more aware that applications will include in-app purchases before the user has a chance to download the application.

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