A SEVEN-year-old boy racked up a £4,000 bill on an iPad game leaving his father battling Apple for a refund.
Mohamed Shugaa, 32, from Crawley, discovered his son Faisall had downloaded the iTunes game Jurassic World and spent £3,911 upgrading his dinosaurs.
Faisall, who memorised his dad's Apple ID, only had to enter it once to make multiple purchases and his father did not notice until his account was declined when he tried to pay suppliers.
Mr Shugaa, who owns Sussex Carpet Centre in Crawley said he initially thought his supplier's credit card machine was broken until he called his bank.
He was shocked when he was told 65 transactions had been made to Apple from December 13 to December 18 and did not understand why Apple did not contact him to query the transactions.
He said: “My son was just playing game. He didn’t know he was spending money. He’s seven years of age. At seven you don’t know the value money.
“I’m a 32-year-old man, I’m not going to be spending it on fake dinosaurs.
“I would go to America and see a real life mock up version of one if I was that interested for that money.
“It’s not my boy’s fault, but it took me to ring them up about it.”
Apple have since agreed to refund Mr Shugaa, but the transaction could take up to 10 business days.
In the meantime, Faisall will have to wait a while until he’s allowed to play in the fantasy world of the diplodocus and T-Rex again.
Mr Shugaa said: “I’ve taken the iPad away from him and taken the games off it as well.
“I took him to one side and explained the situation to him, but he’s only seven.”
Apple said its devices have built in parental controls that give parents and guardians the ability to restrict access to content.
A spokesman said: “Our parents’ guide to iTunes details the steps adults can take to make sure younger players have access to the right content. The first thing we recommend is not to share your password.”
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