Mum's Fury: 5-Year-Old Spends $1700 On In-App Purchases And Dad Says It's 'No Big Deal'

A shocked mum has discovered her five-year-old son has spent more than $1700 on in-app purchases on his new iPad, but her husband says she shouldn’t be upset.

The furious mum says she blames her husband for the purchases, after he admitted he set up touch ID for their son, so he could get what he wanted. She explained on reddit that they have only just bought the iPad for their little boy, who managed to rack up the huge amount of purchase in a short time.

“Yesterday (my husband) told me our son had spent over £1000 on in-app purchases,” she explained. “I was shocked because our son has never asked me to buy anything on the iPad and I didn’t think he knew how to do it himself.

“My husband admitted he had set up touch ID for him and that was how he was doing it. He kept saying it wasn’t a big deal and I shouldn’t be upset at our son.”

‘It’s no big deal’

The thing is, the mum says she’s not upset at her son, she’s upset with her husband, who allowed it to happen.

“I told him it was his fault which turned into a big argument. During the argument he kept saying it wasn’t a big deal which was making me upset because it is a big deal that neither of us knew he was doing this until it got to this point.

“I snapped at him and told him to stop saying that. Now he’s upset with me and is continuing to let our son make in-app purchases.”

What’s your advice for this frustrated mum? Let us know in the comments below.

41 Comments

- - meedee said
  - 17 Aug 2024
    8:41 am
I certainly hope that this Dad has paid out the debit and that things were changed asap so this child could no longer purchase things.
It is a big deal. Children need to learn about money and responsible spending and they also need ot learn that they cant have everything they want. This Dad is being very irresponsible

- - Zmijka86 said
  - 15 May 2022
    12:46 pm
Wow that is a lot of money. This is why I don’t have payment option connected to my account

- - mom462038 said
  - 05 May 2022
    6:22 pm
Oh wow, that’s a lot if money, I would be awfully upset too

- - sharna_booth_weinrowski said
  - 04 May 2022
    8:16 am
this utterly scares me!

- - ~Loui~ said
  - 09 Apr 2022
    10:26 pm
This article doesn’t explain why she has a problem with it. Is it the money? the content? control? Without knowing the full story, it’s difficult to make a judgement.

- - mom461384 said
  - 09 Apr 2022
    11:58 am
If he’s okay with that kind of money being spent on an app, I guess your free to go shopping!

- - mom160289 said
  - 07 Apr 2022
    8:22 pm
Clearly money isn’t an issue if he doesn’t care?

- - mom466557 said
  - 07 Apr 2022
    11:40 am
I would cry haha but it happens so often!

- - rachel1970 said
  - 05 Apr 2022
    6:21 pm
OMG, the one thing I never did was set up my kids iPad’s so they were linked to my credit card! In my line of work, I have seen, far too many times where these such things have happened! And they are authorised transactions so you can’t dispute them!

- - Sam said
  - 04 Apr 2022
    9:50 pm
Ummm, I think there is a problem :/

- - rovermum said
  - 04 Apr 2022
    2:03 pm
This would have blown my mind. I’m glad my son never did this. He was never allowed to play on or use my phone. My credit details are not my phone so he would have been unable anyway. This is a new age problem where kids are allowed to do anything now – just give them your phone to keep them quiet!!

- - Julzie13 said
  - 03 Apr 2022
    9:13 am
If the dad wants to pay for it, then what is the problem? If he expects you to pay for half then there is the main issue. Unfortunately parenting is difficult, even more so for both parents having the same opinions on everything.

- - TraceyGail said
  - 03 Apr 2022
    7:52 am
That’s a huge deal and the husband is being irresponsible.

- - Ellen said
  - 03 Apr 2022
    7:36 am
Lol, we don’t even spend $1 for apps for our kids, there’s so many nice apps out there for free. And when my teenagers want to spend money for apps and games they’ll have to work for it or get a job

- - ralu said
  - 03 Apr 2022
    6:25 am
That’s ridiculous, the child should not be able to buy whatever he wants at that age.

- - mom101628 said
  - 02 Apr 2022
    1:21 am
Make your husband pay the bill for the child and not decrease your housekeeping or the amount put in the budget for all the other bills you have to pay. If it hits HIS hip pocket, he might realise it is a big deal.

- - mom485263 said
  - 02 Apr 2022
    12:02 am
How is that no big deal? Sorry but I can’t play it cool at that figure. It is just ridiculous and even my husband would be shocked that a kid would rack up that much of a bill. I’d be making changes to how purchases could be made quick smart!

- - Frankiielot said
  - 01 Apr 2022
    10:34 pm
Okay, wow – that’s a large sum of money just on apps!
We spent a few dollars, maybe 50 bucks when we first got our daughter an iPad as most learning games require payment and as it was for learning we didn’t mind but anything else was a big no no. Especially the ones that were yearly subscriptions costing close to a hundred bucks.

- - sars_angelchik said
  - 01 Apr 2022
    10:07 pm
And this is why we shouldn’t let kids use phones.

- - Mumof3boyos said
  - 01 Apr 2022
    8:40 pm
Omg it’s a lot of money, I’d be devastated.