12-Year-Old Runs Up £900 Credit Card Debt On FarmVille | Ramblings of an e-trader

Friday 9 April 2010

12-Year-Old Runs Up £900 Credit Card Debt On FarmVille

Those of us who have a Facebook account would know of a game called FarmVille and those of us who actually play the game know how addictive it could be.

Well, this 12-year-old boy from the UK spent about £300 of his own savings buying virtual goods for his farm on FarmVille and then charged his mother's credit card to the tune of £900 for even more virtual FarmVille cash to buy more virtual farm goods.

The mother hasn't got any headway with either Facebook the social network site, Zynga the game developer or HSBC her bank and has gone public with her story to warn other parents of the "dangers" of online games on social networking websites.

This story has left me wondering how a 12-year-old could get hold of his mother's credit card and charge it with an online purchase. Aren't there more stringent checks by Facebook or PayPal to notice that the account used to purchase virtual goods is different from the name on the credit card?

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