MBL: In-game purchases
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2020
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Unexpected bills from video games and apps? The online world of video games and apps can be financially treacherous, filled with loot boxes and micro-transactions. They can mean large, unexpected bills through the relatively new phenomenon of in-game purchases. Louise Cooper and guests discuss what your consumer rights are if things go wrong.
Guests:
Dr Jo Twist, CEO at The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) Alex Neill, CEO at Resolver David McClelland, technology journalist
Producer: Ben Carter Editor: Hugh Levinson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers. |
| 0:08.0 | But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA |
| 0:12.0 | was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife. |
| 0:18.0 | Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? When lies are still being told to this day, |
| 0:24.0 | who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start and I'm with the IRA. |
| 0:28.5 | Steakknife. Listen first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. It's every parent's nightmare, an unexpected bill for thousands of pounds from your child playing computer games online. |
| 0:45.4 | Many titles like the popular Fortnite are now free to play, but make their money via in-game purchases. |
| 0:51.9 | The problem is that children often don't realize they're racking up |
| 0:55.5 | huge bills for their parents to pay. And one such parent is Paul who joins us now. Welcome to |
| 1:01.2 | Moneybox, Paul. Hello, Louise. I wish you'd joined the Moneybox team in slightly happier circumstances. |
| 1:08.5 | Yes. Yes, it's been a rough month. |
| 1:11.6 | It's been a rough month. |
| 1:12.5 | Well, let's talk about that rough month |
| 1:14.3 | because you had a bit of a credit card shock in January. |
| 1:18.4 | Yeah, an £11,500 shock on January the 18th |
| 1:24.0 | when I looked at my credit card app. |
| 1:28.7 | What happened? How? |
| 1:31.2 | Well, I don't know. I guess I'm like any modern parent person. |
| 1:36.5 | You know, I'd probably look at my accounts, bank account, credit cards once a month. |
| 1:42.9 | I might start doing that a bit more now. But I woke up on a |
| 1:46.1 | Saturday morning post-Christmas, thought I better see just how damaging Christmas had been to |
| 1:52.6 | both current account and credit card. Current account was okay, looked at the credit card and there |
... |
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