An Alberta, Canada father was shocked when his credit card bill amounted to nearly $5k of in-app purchases.
Jerry Marion eventually found the culprit- his 18-year old daughter, who bought in-game items for the freemium game Township. It’s a free to play game with severe paywalls and locks unless the user spends a significant amount of money.
Globalnews.ca reported that Marion believed his daughter was confused as to how the in-app purchases worked. He also said that she might have been dealing with isolation and social anxiety, which may have led to the extraordinarily high bill.
The Alberta native tried to get the $4,986 bill refunded but Apple denied the attempt. Marion reached out to Globalnews.ca for help, and eventually the full amount was waived off.
Children going overboard with in-app purchases are nothing new. In 2021, a child spent $1,800 on the freemium game ‘Dragons: Rise of Berk’, while in 2020 another spent $16,000 on ‘Sonic Forces’.
