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Facebook Offering Refunds For Kids' In-App Purchases (pcmag.com)

Posted by msmash on from the get-your-money-back dept.

Parents who found themselves with hefty bills after their kids made in-app purchases -- mainly via the now-defunct Facebook Credits -- can now request a refund from Facebook. PCMag reports: The news comes as part of a settlement for a class-action lawsuit brought against the social network in February 2012, and covers those who made any kind of purchase through their Facebook accounts between February 2008 and March 2015. Facebook maintained that it did nothing wrong, as those purchasing digital currency received what they paid for. But California's Family Code stipulates that minors can void contracts they make at any point when they're under 18 years of age. In other words, the legislation is designed to prevent other entities from preying on minors who don't otherwise understand the ramifications of their actions -- like tapping repeatedly on an in-app item to acquire it.

22 comments

  1. Facebook still wins the war by Bob_Who · · Score: 1

    They maintain they did nothing wrong. That means that their lack of ethics remains fully at play in every other business decision. Even if they did nothing wrong, is that really good enough? Google does no evil, Facebook does no wrong, does any corporate monolith proactively do any good as a top priority?

    1. Re:Facebook still wins the war by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They maintain they did nothing wrong. That means that their lack of ethics remains fully at play in every other business decision.

      I'm generally the last person to defend Facebook, but this case appears to be a bit different from the typical "Kids rack up bills in in-app purchases" scenarios we've seen in Google or Apple in previous years. In particular, note the follow from another article on this case:

      One child's mother let him spend $20 on her credit card to let him unlock features within the game Ninja Emblem, but the account was charged several hundred dollars for purchases the child subsequently made with what he thought was fake money.

      The other child racked up charges of $1,059 after taking his parent's debit card without permission.

      While the lawsuit was class-action and applies to a lot of other cases, these were the ONLY two kids who actually were directly involved in the suit, one of whom simply took his parent's card without permission.

      That's something that ANY online site could have issues with -- a kid who takes a parent's card could be making purchases anywhere online. Why exactly should Facebook be more culpable than any other online site in dealing with payments like that?

      Would it be NICE for Facebook to return that money? Sure. But not all companies would, particularly for goods that were non-returnable. In that case, most parents would have to take this up as a dispute with their credit card company, who probably would work it out. (Unfortunately, though, this says it was a debit card -- one more reason never to use debit cards... they simply don't give you as much protection if they are ever used in an unauthorized manner.)

      Anyhow, obviously it would be reasonable for Facebook to refund most or all of the money in a case like this. But it's a rather different scenario from some of the other "in-app purchase" judgments we've seen. In those cases, the issue was that a credit card was generally entered by parents, say to make a couple app purchases, and they didn't realize that their device was set to automatically authorize all future purchases or whatever. In those cases, what was lacking was a proper control setting to turn off in-app purchases, a proper password requirement, or some sort of warning.

      In other words, the credit card information was entered knowingly for an authorized reason, but the parent had no clear notice that it could be used further without limit.

      Here the bar is much lower -- basically, any kid under 18 is eligible for refunds, regardless of what level of negligence on the parent's part, whether the card was basically stolen from the parents, or whatever. Again, it's generally the "right thing to do" to refund the money, but ethically I think at least in one scenario here Facebook is not as culpable or "evil" as some other cases we've seen.

    2. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      does any corporate monolith proactively do any good as a top priority?

      Sure, when that good is a profitable activity in their core competency.
      Otherwise, why would it (an entity that exists solely to make a profit for its shareholders) do so?

    3. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One child's mother let him spend $20 on her credit card to let him unlock features within the game Ninja Emblem, but the account was charged several hundred dollars for purchases the child subsequently made with what he thought was fake money.

      The other child racked up charges of $1,059 after taking his parent's debit card without permission.

      While the lawsuit was class-action and applies to a lot of other cases, these were the ONLY two kids who actually were directly involved in the suit, one of whom simply took his parent's card without permission.

      That's something that ANY online site could have issues with -- a kid who takes a parent's card could be making purchases anywhere online. Why exactly should Facebook be more culpable than any other online site in dealing with payments like that?

      I'm generally the last person to push parental responsibility onto those not responsible for the child... however, this isn't like making a stupid censor the worlds internet for the kids law like the UK.

      Yes children shouldn't have access to credit cards, but then these games should either be a one off purchase or not available to under 18s... The authors of these games know exactly what they are doing, targeting children for clicks as a vector to their parents wallet... They are also doing it on Facebook's platform, so yes Facebook should be responsible.

    4. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would it be nice to return the Money?
      They entered in to a contract with a minor would was not the owner of the card. They can press charges it they choose, But they took on the risk by dealing remotely.
      You can not enter in to contract with a minor. It is legally invalid. That is the law.
      They are refunding since there only argument is they did not know they were minors.
      The Law did not care the contracts are still void.

      Apple dealt with the same issues. They refunded and changed policy too.
      A big change when it affected the business model of in app purchases.

    5. Re:Facebook still wins the war by swb · · Score: 1

      Really, somebody needs to go after Visa/MC/Amex and start taking the money from them, too, because they're the ones that enable the purchasing aspect of this.

      It would be kind of nice if these "app store" type purchases required not just that app store approval, but some kind of credit card pin to approve the actual financial transaction, too.

      There's just so much functionality tied to the app store/vendor cloud account that you end up needing the password to add free apps, which ends up opening the door to using the password for making in-app purchases as well.

      It'd be nice to see "a minor made this purchase" be an affirmative and non-deniable method of obtaining a refund. Yes, it would be abused, but the abuse of it would be the key to forcing the app store and/or Visa into creating a system of affirmative cardholder approval of the purchases.

    6. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the subscription I had to Owl magazine as a young child should have been refunded and it was ethically wrong for them to publish it?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OWL_(magazine)

    7. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's funny to see your money disappear into a well in the fraction of a second it takes to blink but 3-4 weeks to recover from fraud.
      The system is geared to eat you up.

    8. Re:Facebook still wins the war by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

      Years later and we still have people lying about Google. They never said "do no evil" at any point. Good people do evil all the time. They said "don't be evil" which is a radically different thing. Good people can waver, but evil people are committed.

    9. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      They maintain they did nothing wrong. That means that their lack of ethics remains fully at play in every other business decision. Even if they did nothing wrong, is that really good enough? Google does no evil, Facebook does no wrong, does any corporate monolith proactively do any good as a top priority?

      Children under 18 don't have credit cards. So how is it Facebook's fault that a child or minor input a credit card for a purchase. That's a parenting issue and the fault lies with them and not Facebook.

    10. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The entire point is that children don't know a) the value of money (or what the parents had to do to acquire it) and b) what the value of services should cost ultimately leading children to make idiotic transactions. There is a reason why there are laws about this.

      The kid stealing a credit card is actually a very good reason to invalidate the transaction because, to the child, all that is occurring is electronic bits over here are being transformed into electronic bits over there. The kid doesn't understand that it was half a months pay to play the game for a few hours. You act like because the transaction was "authorized" or because this could happen to others, then it is ok. The actual transactions were not directly authorized - because the kid can't authorize them.

      You are an idiot if you believe the drivel you just posted. The fact is simple: these apps and games are set up for the purpose of having kids buy shit that is literally worth nothing and that no one but multi-millionaires would buy. The app owners don't want the huge $1,000 bills. They want "small" $10 - $40 bills that the parents don't want to deal with charging back so they accept.

      Not everyone understands how transactions in each app and on each device work and what permissions exist at a given time. I also don't think it is reasonable, at least at this time, to expect everyone to know exactly how these payment systems work. For nearly an eternity we have had a financial system that was basically: one authorization per transaction or EXPLICIT authorization for a specific recurring transaction. Early are the days of one authorization means unlimited/indefinite transactions.

      To think a parent will have a list of how these systems work and will lock up credit cards when around children is absurd. The person charging has to have some responsibility in ensuring transactions are legitimate, especially as it becomes easier and easier to make electronic transactions.

    11. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      Would it be nice to return the Money? They entered in to a contract with a minor would was not the owner of the card. They can press charges it they choose, But they took on the risk by dealing remotely. You can not enter in to contract with a minor. It is legally invalid. That is the law. They are refunding since there only argument is they did not know they were minors. The Law did not care the contracts are still void.

      Apple dealt with the same issues. They refunded and changed policy too. A big change when it affected the business model of in app purchases.

      Is it even Facebook who received the money? These are app purchases. Facebook provides the platform but the apps are 3rd parties making the profit. For example, candy crush is owned by King who is now owned by Activision Blizz.

    12. Re:Facebook still wins the war by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

      Well that is just false. People steal children's identities to open credit cards all the time. Why do you think the kids couldn't do it themselves?

    13. Re:Facebook still wins the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was it possible to buy infinitely more copies by just reading it once your parents set up the initial transaction?... no

  2. google was / is better then apple for the apps by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    google was / is better then apple for the apps.

    With google no password or payment info is needed for free apps.

    With apple it's been hard to impossible to get an apple id with out some kind of payment info. Not to long ago to get an id to install the latest mac os (updating an older mac for someone) It forced me to add a cc to install the free update I was able to remove the cc after that.

    also with apple some times / in the past it needs the password to install free apps on the ios and there is not a way to have a buy pin that is just needed for buy stuff.

    Also there used to be the default 15 min free for all that did not need a password to buy. So install app and then for the next 15 get tricked into paying real cash for in game stuff.

  3. Nitpick - voidABLE in most cases, not *void* by raymorris · · Score: 2

    > You can not enter in to contract with a minor. It is legally invalid. That is the law.

    A minor *can* disaffirm a contract in most cases. The contract is neither "invalid" nor "void", until the minor declares that they wish to disaffirm. There are several exceptions.

    Here's the actual text of the statute in California which lays out the general rule. It also includes one of the exceptions:
    http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-...

    Exceptions aren't all listed in one place. Here's an example - for a high value contract like Justin Bieber's recording contract, the parties can have a court to approve the contract. The contract must set-aside some of the earnings in a trust fund for the minor to have later and meet other conditions. Once approved by the court, it cannot be disaffirmed.
    http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-...

  4. F2P is turrible by whoozwah · · Score: 1

    Primarily this is once again shining a light on the shitty development model that is F2P games. Can't games just be games? You buy it once and if you can't beat a level you just suck until you git gud and it isn't designed to suck money out of you by imposing arbitrary time limits or other such garbage to annoy you into succumbing to a paywall just to play a damn game?

  5. I had credit cards before I was 18 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How else to you train and educate kids if you don't let them start with small tools before they leave the house?

  6. Facebook is INTERNATIONAL DATA LEAK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So be aware that anything your kids say or do on there... is not only stored indefinitely but shared internationally on demand.

    When you delete an account it is not deleted. You just can't access it any more. This is how you can re-activate it.

    Lies lies lies tell me sweet little lies... tell me lies.. tell me tell me lies.

  7. Candy Crush Saga! by edunbar93 · · Score: 1

    So it looks like revenue at King will be going down a wee bit...

    --
    "No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
    1. Re:Candy Crush Saga! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All faggots go to HELL.

      edunbar93: C.I.A. account.