A girl spent more than $ 20,000 on Genshin Impact with the credit card of her parents

Mr. Lim Cheng Mong was puzzled when the bank called him to say that it had defaulted on more than US $ 20,000 of overdue credit card debt .- " At first I thought I had been scammed, but the credit card company said all the transactions were legitimate and there was nothing they could do ,"- said Lim, 56, who works as a product manager at a German company. The billing trail led to his 18-year-old daughter's Grab account , linked to her credit card and intended to cover her transportation costs. But, unbeknownst to him, the teenager had linked her electronic wallet to a video game for smartphones called Genshin Impact.and he spent six weeks, from August to October, on in-app purchases to enhance his gaming experience.

"I scolded her and told her it was a lot of money, the equivalent of a year of study if she went to a foreign university ," Lim told The Straits Times . " The enormous sum was spent without blinking, " he said. This type of stories of parents who spend large sums to pay the bills generated by the expenses of their children on the Internet are more and more frequent, since more and more young people are exposed to this type of transaction with the increase of digitization. Companies that are dedicated to digital payments advise parents to set notifications in their electronic wallets to monitor and be alerted to their children's expenses.

The success of Chinese fantasy role-playing video game Genshin Impact , which has earned more than US $ 2 billion since its launch in September 2020, has been clouded by criticism of its in-game purchasing system. The award-winning open-world video game is free to play, but progress is slow unless players purchase upgrades for real money. Players can try their luck and buy random items to upgrade their characters.

The daughter of Mr. Lim, a student at an international baccalaureate school, spent up to $ 300 to buy these random items. With each purchase, he hoped to get items that would enhance his experience, a mechanic his father compared to the game. For this reason, Genshin Impact has been banned in countries like Belgium, which consider the "gacha" mechanics of the game as a form of gambling. " Gacha " is a Japanese word that refers to a vending machine that dispenses toys at random, usually contained in plastic capsules. This mechanic is used in other video games such as FIFA and Star Wars Battlefront .

In the case of Mr. Lim, his daughter made payments through the App Store of Apple and Coda Payments , a leading online trading platform. Lawyer Lionel Tan , who specializes in technology, media and telecommunications, said that there is the possibility of canceling a transaction if a minor plays a game intended for adults, or if there are confusing statements in the application that induce a user to pay .

Mr Lim's daughter has just reached the minimum age of 18 that allows her to enter into contracts on her own, said Mr Tan from Rajah and Tann Singapore . She added that it is difficult to argue that she was unaware of having made the purchases online. He added that these types of incidents may be on the rise as more services are digitized. Some cases involving those under the age of 18 have been amicably resolved because the child may not have understood the nature of the purchase, he said.

" The online site may also want to avoid negative publicity or regulatory scrutiny that may be placed on it, " said Mr Tan, who advised parents to be vigilant about their children's activities on the Internet and in the internet. games. Mr. Lim has since recovered about $ 10,000 from his credit card issuing bank, which he says was done out of his good will.

Finally, with this post I would like to raise awareness among parents, to always keep their credit cards out of their reach. Because this can become a double-edged sword when they leave it unprotected in front of people who do not know how to use it correctly and could lead the owner of the card directly to bankruptcy or debt them up to the neck. With this I say goodbye and see you in a next post.