For the sake of Sonic Forces, 6-year-old boy spends IDR 227 million of his mother's money until he can't afford a house mortgage

GAMEFINITY.ID, Jakarta – For parents, it’s good to supervise children in using gadgets, especially in playing games. If you are negligent, it could be that the unpleasant experience experienced by Jessica Johnson, also experienced by you. The woman who works as a real estate broker in the Wilton area, Connecticut, United States, had to find her credit card bills plummeting, after her six-year-old son, George Johnson secretly spent more than 16,000 USD or around Rp. 227 million on the Apple app store for games. his favorite, Sonic Forces.

As the NY Post reports, while working from home during the pandemic, Jessica Johnson was unaware that the youngest of her two sons had been shopping heavily on her iPad. During July, George buys add-on boosters, starting from a red ring for 1.99 USD and going up to a gold ring for 99.99 USD. These boosters allow him to access new and faster characters, at the cost of spending hundreds of dollars at a time.

On July 9, there were 25 bills totaling more than 2,500 USD or around Rp. 35.5 million. Jessica still didn’t realize what George was doing. When Jessica discovered Apple and PayPal were withdrawing large sums of money from her Chase account, she assumed it was a mistake or a scam and called the bank.

“The way the fees are bundled makes it almost impossible to tell they are from a game. It’s like my 6 year old is doing a cocaine deal, every time it gets bigger and bigger,” Jessica joked about her first grader.

Still clueless about what George was up to, Jessica filed a fraud claim in July when the bill totaled 16,293.10 USD. But it wasn’t until October that he was told by Chase that the bill was indeed his and he needed to contact Apple. He realized that it was all George’s doing when he contacted Apple, after seeing the Sonic icon. Apple said they couldn’t do anything about it because Jessica hadn’t called within 60 days of being billed.

“The reason I didn’t call within 60 days is because Chase told me it was likely a scam.”

Even when she was begging for not being able to pay the mortgage on her family’s home, Jessica had no sympathy from Apple. Apple said Jessica should have made parental control settings as a precaution to lock the account, including limiting purchases and access to apps. Jessica admits that she didn’t put a preventative setting on her account, because she didn’t know it.

“Obviously, if I had known there was an arrangement for that, I wouldn’t have let my 6 year old spend nearly 20,000 USD to pay for a virtual gold ring. This game is designed to be completely predatory and get the kids to buy things. Which adult would spend 100 USD on a virtual gold coin chest?” Jessica said.

Sega, the makers of Sonic Forces, did not return calls for comment. Jessica herself does not blame her child, but Apple. Jessica could only be confused when trying to explain this incident to her child.

“He said, ‘Okay, I’ll pay you back, Mom.’ How? I paid him 4 USD to clean the room! I might have to force this kid to pay me back in 15 years when he gets his first job.”

Jessica believes the fault lies with Apple. The reason, George does not understand that the money spent is real money. He is now struggling to pay off his debts. The 41-year-old woman also advised other parents to check their device’s security settings so they don’t experience a similar incident.

“I didn’t get paid from March to September. My income is down 80 percent this year. I’m surprised that this is possible and Apple devices are not pre-set to prevent it.”