A 7-year-old boy in West Sussex, England recently racked up nearly $6K in mobile charges playing Jurassic World on his father's iPad. He had memorized and used his Dad's password to access the Apple tablet, and was able to get around any restrictions to make in-app purchases while playing the video game based on the 2015 mega-hit movie.
When Mohamed Shugaa's bank card was declined, he discovered that his son had made 65 transactions between the dates December 13 and December 18. The bill was about $5,900.
Shugaa owns a carpet company, according to The Telegraph. He discovered his bank card was overdrawn when he tried to buy supplies for his business.
Shugaa's son Faisall had used the game currency Dino Bucks to make the iTunes purchases. However, he was unaware he was spending real money.
The UK man is irate that Apple did not verify the many purchases made on his account in the span of less than one week. He told The Metro he is upset Apple did not red flag a 32-year-old man buying many virtual dinosaurs and upgrading a "daft" (foolish) mobile game.
It seems Apple has refunded the purchases made by Shugaa's son, according to PC Mag. PC Mag points out that activating Touch ID could help to prevent such future unauthorized purchases.
In fact, Apple's website recommends that parents activate built-in parental controls for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. It gives parents the ability to turn off functions such as in-app and iTunes purchases.
Another issue is that Apple purchase receipts would have been sent to his inbox. Tens of them would be hard to miss unless they were filtered to the trash bin.
Jurassic World allows players to purchase over 50 dinosaur species. They can battle other huge creatures and construct a dinosaur park.