Apple Decides To Refund Parents £1710.43 After News Breaks of Refusal to Refund Accidental In-App Purchases

<p>With the rise of smart phones and tablets we all knew that developers would jump on board and release numerous applications to help us through our day-to-day lives&period; There’s apps for pretty much everything after all&comma; checking the show times at your local cinema&comma; streaming your favourite shows from the BBC through its iPlayer app and even apps like &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Fat Booth” that just makes you look fat&&num;8230&semi; ok&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>So with the rise of the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;free-to-play” game has only gone from strength to strength&period; Those tiny little addictive games which encourage you to play them through push notifications on a daily basis and that reward you greatly if you spend real money through in-app purchases in order to level up your characters or get more powerful weapons for example&period; Which is exactly what five-year-old Danny did when playing Zombies vs Ninjas on the families iPad&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Whilst playing through the game&comma; he purchases 333 in-game bombs at the cost of £69&period;99 before continuing to purchase other add-ons a total of eighteen times&comma; buying twelve &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;333 keys” and seven &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;333 ecstasy bombs” all at £69&period;99 each&period; Ouch&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>His parents&comma; Greg and Sharon&comma; were only made aware of this when they noticed that they had received many emails from the iTunes store and later received a call from their bank enquiring why so many transactions had been made so frequently at such large amounts&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The family obviously became very distressed regarding the matter with Sharon being reported of saying&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><i>&&num;8220&semi;That game is very annoying &&num;8211&semi; and who would spend more than £1&comma;700 on a game&quest; It&&num;8217&semi;s the first time any of our kids have done anything like this &&num;8211&semi; and it will be the last&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;i><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><i>&&num;8220&semi;Danny has been in tears when we told him how much money he had spent&period; Loads of parents in the playground said similar things had happened to them but for a lot less money&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;i><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>At first the family were unsure if they would receive a refund from Apple although when the story began going viral online Apple responded by issuing a statement which included an offer to refund the family in full&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div>&NewLine;<p>&lbrack;Source&colon; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;eurogamer&period;net&sol;articles&sol;2013-02-28-parents-refused-refund-by-apple-after-son-spends-1700-on-free-ipad-game">Eurogamer<&sol;a>&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"zemanta-pixie" style&equals;"margin-top&colon; 10px&semi; height&colon; 15px&semi;"><img class&equals;"zemanta-pixie-img" style&equals;"border&colon; none&semi; float&colon; right&semi;" alt&equals;"" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;img&period;zemanta&period;com&sol;pixy&period;gif&quest;x-id&equals;ba0b843e-3cc6-4774-9972-6a3afdd30d96" &sol;><&sol;div>&NewLine;