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Amazon Is Refunding Up To $70 Million In-App Purchases Made By Kids (cnn.com)
The Federal Trade Commission announced that refunds are now available for parents whose children made in-app purchases without their knowledge. Amazon dropped its appeal of last year's ruling by a federal judge who sided with the Federal Trade Commission in the agency's lawsuit again Amazon. According to a TechCrunch report, "the FTC's original complaint said that Amazon should be liable for millions of dollars it charged customers, because of the way its Appstore software was designed -- that is, it allowed kids to spend unlimited amounts of money in games and other apps without requiring parental consent." CNNMoney reports: According to the FTC, more than $70 million in charges may be eligible for refunds on in-app purchases made between November 2011 and May 2016. In 2014, Apple and Google refunded customers whose children made purchases in their mobile app stores, and the companies were forced to be more explicit about in-app purchases. Both firms no longer call apps "free" when they are free to download but have upgrades you can buy. Amazon sent eligible consumers an email to receive a refund. If you didn't get one and think you should be eligible, you can click here, or go to the Message Center to find out more information.
No. Read the summary:
According to the FTC, more than $70 million in charges may be eligible for refunds on in-app purchases made between November 2011 and May 2016.
lucm, indeed.
Why do people continue to buy this apps ?? pay over and over for something you should pay only once?
if an arcade worked like apple ios used to be they be shutdown fast.
Like we have lot's of free to play games with your (entry pass just to keep in line with having to buy an ios device) but that pass is one off and is good for at least 2+ years.
But to play them you need to link your game card to you CC / bank account or you can jump thought a lot very poorly listed line of hoops to get an game card with out an payment system linked to it. (you can buy the same entry pass at other places for other stuff on the devices and before we added the store the passes where sold just to keep in line with having to buy an ios device to say why the payment for the pass is not linked to the store)
Now to the real meat of the issue.
Some of the free games had ad's in them others are just free but to play the free games just need put in your pin.
Some of the free games have in game add on's that you can buy with real cash. But some games are set up in away that makes it easy to mix up in game cash / gold buy screens with buy X with real cash screens. To use real money you to use your pin but to make it easy for up to 15 min after putting your pin in we don't ask it for it again.
We also have games that are pay to play and don't have in game add on's for real cash same pin system.
And there is the jukebox where you have buy music from it's own buy screens but it's very clear that it's going to cost real cash for that. same pin system.
over locked down where the free stuff password / pin is the same as the buy password.
I used to have this cable system where for the free VOD stuff you had to go though all of the buy screens that said cost $0.00 to view it. Better systems just show the free stuff and only do the buy screens for the PPV stuff.
also some games had buy X with in game gold but the buy X with real cash screens look just about the same so that can confuse people. even more so kids who think they are just useing in game funds.
and buying stuff in games is not new old NES and before had that.
I worked in an Amazon warehouse. At least in the UK, absolutely everything is thoroughly and repeatedly scanned. Straight off the van to the receivers who scan the barcode to confirm the item is in the warehouse, which then goes on to the stowers who scan the barcode and the shelf to confirm that it's now on a shelf, then the pickers scan the barcode to confirm that it has been taken off the shelves, and that goes to the packers who scan it and put it into a box which goes onto a delivery van. All packages are weighed before they go out, and are kicked out if they're the wrong weight or it hasn't been scanned properly.
It might be different in other countries but the ones in the UK are pretty much bulletproof. You would have to scan an object and put the wrong one into the box which should never, ever happen.
"locking down devices" isn't your job but parenting is, which involves a number of responsibilities one of which is moderating what devices you give them with credit card information saved therein.
No do you have to be a genius to turn on parental controls, and restrict all purchases on your Fire tablets to need a password the kids don't have.
Alternatively just don't link a credit card to the dam device. All four of my nephews and nieces have Fire tablets, the oldest two are on their second none of which have *EVER* had a credit card linked to them. All app/in-app purchases have been made via gift vouchers applied to their personal Amazon accounts. It's not rocket science folks.