Facebook Offering Refunds For Kids' In-App Purchases (pcmag.com) 22
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.
Facebook still wins the war (Score:2)
They maintain they did nothing wrong. That means that their lack of ethics remains fully at play in every other business decision. Even if they did nothing wrong, is that really good enough? Google does no evil, Facebook does no wrong, does any corporate monolith proactively do any good as a top priority?
Re:Facebook still wins the war (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [theguardian.com]:
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.
Nitpick - voidABLE in most cases, not *void* (Score:3)
> You can not enter in to contract with a minor. It is legally invalid. That is the law.
A minor *can* disaffirm a contract in most cases. The contract is neither "invalid" nor "void", until the minor declares that they wish to disaffirm. There are several exceptions.
Here's the actual text of the statute in California which lays out the general rule. It also includes one of the exceptions:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-... [ca.gov]
Exceptions aren't all listed in one place. Here's an example - for a high value con
Re: (Score:1)
Would it be nice to return the Money? They entered in to a contract with a minor would was not the owner of the card. They can press charges it they choose, But they took on the risk by dealing remotely. You can not enter in to contract with a minor. It is legally invalid. That is the law. They are refunding since there only argument is they did not know they were minors. The Law did not care the contracts are still void.
Apple dealt with the same issues. They refunded and changed policy too. A big change when it affected the business model of in app purchases.
Is it even Facebook who received the money? These are app purchases. Facebook provides the platform but the apps are 3rd parties making the profit. For example, candy crush is owned by King who is now owned by Activision Blizz.
google was / is better then apple for the apps (Score:2)
google was / is better then apple for the apps.
With google no password or payment info is needed for free apps.
With apple it's been hard to impossible to get an apple id with out some kind of payment info. Not to long ago to get an id to install the latest mac os (updating an older mac for someone) It forced me to add a cc to install the free update I was able to remove the cc after that.
also with apple some times / in the past it needs the password to install free apps on the ios and there is not a way to
Re: (Score:2)
Really, somebody needs to go after Visa/MC/Amex and start taking the money from them, too, because they're the ones that enable the purchasing aspect of this.
It would be kind of nice if these "app store" type purchases required not just that app store approval, but some kind of credit card pin to approve the actual financial transaction, too.
There's just so much functionality tied to the app store/vendor cloud account that you end up needing the password to add free apps, which ends up opening the door to u
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
They maintain they did nothing wrong. That means that their lack of ethics remains fully at play in every other business decision. Even if they did nothing wrong, is that really good enough? Google does no evil, Facebook does no wrong, does any corporate monolith proactively do any good as a top priority?
Children under 18 don't have credit cards. So how is it Facebook's fault that a child or minor input a credit card for a purchase. That's a parenting issue and the fault lies with them and not Facebook.
Re: (Score:1)
F2P is turrible (Score:1)
Candy Crush Saga! (Score:2)
So it looks like revenue at King will be going down a wee bit...