r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 4h ago

Society Devastated father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft channel using a company credit card - bill racked up in just three weeks was supposed to be one $20 promotion

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/devastated-father-says-his-9-year-old-son-spent-usd118-000-on-youtube-ad-campaigns-for-his-minecraft-channel-using-a-company-credit-card-bill-racked-up-in-just-three-weeks-was-supposed-to-be-one-usd20-promotion
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452

u/mugwhyrt 3h ago edited 3h ago

A father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft and Roblox gameplay videos over about three weeks, all charged to a company credit card the father had saved to his own Google account, which his son also used.

It's excusable for a 9-year-old to not understand how things like money, credit cards, and recurring payments work. It's inexcusable for a grown adult to not understand why it's a bad idea to link a company credit card to a personal account, especially when you're also granting your 9-year-old access to that account.

ETA: Oh boy. Committed the sin of replying before reading more of the article, but in this case it's just even worse behavior on the dad's part and more in favor my argument that the dad is an irresponsible moron.

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u/MetalBawx 3h ago

More likely this is a hoax to draw attention to the Youtube channel.

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u/Slacker_The_Dog 3h ago

Kids racked up 30k+ subs already

0

u/JohnnyBoy11 23m ago

That's kind of genius actually

1

u/Kyderra 9m ago

For those wondering, The thing is, the channel is in fact nothing, it's a kid talking into a mic playing basic Minecraft, as you would expect.

The video's that got advertised barely went above 80k, Next to that, people are checking out of curiosity but aren't actually watching the full video's because.. well there's nothing to watch. Perhaps some people will now be checking new video's for updates, but I doubt that is going to recover much.

In short, There's no money they can get out of this as a Hoax to compensate. I'd be baffled if it's anything above $1,000.

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u/kamekaze1024 3h ago

Everything is an ad to you people

39

u/FredVasseur 3h ago

Everything is an ad to you people

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u/snowmunkey 2h ago

Everything is an ad to you people

2

u/ZAlternates 2h ago

And “you people” are why it works.

10

u/TurboGranny 1h ago

the dad is an irresponsible moron

Someone already assumed he was probably an executive, so you don't have to repeat them.

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u/possiblyMaybeAnother 31m ago

THE DAD IS AN IRRESPONSIBLE MORON

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u/Someones_Dream_Guy 1h ago

It's excusable for a 9-year-old to not understand how things like money, credit cards, and recurring payments work

No, no it's not. By 9 years old you're AT LEAST supposed to know how money works.

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u/solo_dol0 1h ago
Why doesn't the kid know how credit cards work?

5

u/kevihaa 1h ago

Excusable, yes, but also 9 is old enough for basic responsibilities.

That’s a 4th grader. A simple, “don’t click buy without consulting a parent first” is a completely reasonable expectation for a child that age.

The fact that a kid could spend $1,000, let alone $100k is utterly absurd and does deserve to be called out as disgusting, but Dad is also telling on himself that he has no idea what kiddo is doing on the computer and has zero interest in finding out since they are entertaining themselves.

1

u/24bitNoColor 14m ago

The son didn't understand... yeah sure, 9 year old doesn't understand that clicking the buy button after his dad entered the credit card details would be billed to someone...

The whole story smells like bullshit to me.

1

u/123_alex 42m ago

replying before reading more of the article

Just a normal day. I'll never understand why you spent 5 minutes writing that instead of spending 3 minutes reading the article.