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