Six-year-Old Video Game 'Addict' Racks Up $16K Bill On His Mother's Credit Card

The family can not pay their mortgage now and will be required to postpone Christmas

A six-year-old Connecticut child quietly spent $16,000 on updates for his favorite video game, Sonic Forces, on his mother's credit card.

George Johnson used Mom Jessica's iPad in July to go on a shopping binge in Apple's app-store, purchasing interactive 'golden rings' that unlocked new characters and stages, costing $1.99 to $99.99. The family can not pay their mortgage now and will be required to postpone Christmas.

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She was shocked at her six-year-old son's deed and was really upset

'It’s like my 6-year-old was doing lines of cocaine — and doing bigger and bigger hits,' she said. 

'These games are designed to be completely predatory and get kids to buy things, What grown-up would spend $100 on a chest of virtual gold coins?'  

He promised to 'pay you back Mum' when George was told what he had done.

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Her income has decreased up to 80 percent as she had not received a paycheck from March to September

Jessica, who works on commission, said: 'How? I pay him $4 to clean his room. I didn’t get a paycheck from March to September. My ­income has decreased by 80 percent this year. I told George: ‘I don’t know about Christmas.’'

It began in July when, due to the pandemic, the mother of two, whose husband looks for the children full-time, was away from home and did not know that her iPad had been brought to the next room by her younger child, The New York Post stated.

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She figured it had to be a fraud and contacted the bank and lodged a lawsuit for fraud after her bill hit $16,293.10

On July 9, on her Apple bill, $2,500 in charges showed that she didn't remember because of the way they were put together, which didn't seem to be related to a video game.

At first, she figured it had to be a fraud and contacted the bank and lodged a lawsuit for fraud after her bill hit $16,293.10.

Three months later, it was not until October that her bank acknowledged that the charges were valid and informed her to call Apple.

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She had skipped the 60-day Apple deadline by then to demand the transactions back.

She just realized who the culprit was after Apple went across 'a buried running list of all the charges' and found a Sonic symbol.

Apple says guardians are asked whether they wish to put protective safeguards in place anytime a new computer is set up, and passcodes and passwords can be used and not issued to children to deter them from making transactions without authorization. But she had skipped the 60-day Apple deadline by then to demand the transactions back.

'The reason I didn’t call within 60 days is that Chase told me it was likely fraud — that PayPal and Apple.com are top fraud charges', she said.

She added: '[Apple] said, "Tough". They told me that because I didn’t call within 60 days of the charges, that they can’t do anything.'

Jessica said that even though she said they couldn't pay the mortgage on their home now, she had no sympathy.

They’re like, ‘There’s a setting, you should have known,’' she said.

'if I had known there was a setting for that, I wouldn’t have allowed my 6-year-old to run up nearly $20,000 in charges for virtual gold rings.' 

Before making kids play with iPads and tablets, Jessica wants to alert other parents about having the child-proof features on.

'Check your security settings. I’m appalled that this is even possible in these games and that Apple devices are not pre-set to prevent this' she said.