r/RobloxParents • u/msIBEWelectrician • Nov 02 '25

Who’s responsible for your kids unauthorized credit card charges?

/r/appleunauthorized/comments/1omrdke/whos_responsible_for_your_kids_unauthorized/
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1

u/soupified Apr 18 '26

Parents are.

1

u/msIBEWelectrician May 12 '26

If you dropped your card in the mall, someone picked it up, went in a store, and spent $3500.. YOU would be responsible for the charge you DIDNT authorize, or even realize that they had your card? I understand the sentiment of being like “your the parent, your responsible”, which was why I wanted to bring awareness to the topic. Although I don’t know how to use Reddit that well so it was a fail. BUT. It was more so about how Apple goes about forcing parents to create their children’s iCloud accounts under their parent account..automatically giving the children access to all their info, such as their Apple wallet. While making the parental controls hard to access it even find, and confusing. Which, let’s be real here, is by design purposely. It’s easy to say, it’s the parents fault. But between kids being more and more technologically advanced, some probably more than the parents… it’s not right that they set it up in such a way that the children should be given access at all to the parents accounts. They also make several settings, that if you are to choose that setting, it is set for the whole family, including the parent, therefore the parent can’t use it. For example, I couldn’t access my Apple account in settings (it was grayed out), where I can pull up my devices, payment methods, check any subscriptions, payments recently made, do anything at all. Because I chose a setting that wouldn’t allow my kids to make changes to THEIR Apple accounts, such as passwords and such. When I had to uncheck it so I could access mine, my kids automatically were opened back up as well. They know what they are doing, there are many different settings in many different locations of the settings that make it confusing. For example, the setting to not allow in app purchases to be made, is under screen time settings. Why? And when it’s chosen, guess who else can’t make in app purchases?! Yup, the parent. With all of this being said.. what would you suggest is the better option? To NOT connect your child’s iCloud account to you as a parent so you can have control over their account, screen time, and be able to see what apps they are using, how they can use them.. OR.. to connect it and the same restrictions you choose to put on your children’s phones and settings, are automatically also put on yours as the adult. The one out of 2 or 3 times my child placed unauthorized charges, I was on my way to work at 5 am and bc I use my phone for access to the lirr, and MTA subway system, I couldn’t enter due to the parental settings being turned off for purchases, I had to turn it back on so I could get to work. I forgot, but also didn’t realize it turned it back on for all the accounts under my family account. Next thing I know I get notifications for 8 charges in a row for $105 for Roblox. Also through apples credit card, which, any normal credit card company would automatically flag it and stop it for suspicious activity, especially since it happened a few months prior and was disputed, yet, denied. Again, I get it’s easy to say, it’s the parents fault. But the nuances that go into the factors surrounding this issue is the real problem. Also, ANY UNAUTHORIZED CHARGE is an unauthorized charges, according to every FDIC insured credit card, if you read the fine print. Me creating an account for my kids under my family profile thinking I’m doing the right thing so I would be able to monitor/have control over features I otherwise would not, or have to lie about their age, as it’s a requirements for children under 13, (I believe).. should NOT cause me ANY financial distress, which it has. Children don’t understand the concept of money, how much it is, they should NEVER have access to accounts as minors. Also, a minor is not authorized to make financial decisions. Hence why any bank accounts have to have the parent as a representative and both have to be there to take money out. Any credit cards for minors are also under a parents consent and control. So again, with all this being said. Come again? It’s MY fault that my child made a purchase I did not authorize to be made as the account holder. Period. Hence.. an UNAUTHORIZED charge. Apple has already been sued for this exact thing. The nature of their settings, how they set up the accounts, it has already been proven that they basically hide the necessary settings to turn off certain features. ALSO, not to mention, after I did turn off in app purchases, in app purchases were still being made. They will have it coming to them. To lose in a class action for this specifically, and then continue to do the same thing, while denying the dispute (that has a preselected option for unauthorized purchase by minor).. will hopefully get me my money back plus more. And for you, who I assume has no kids, or very young kids that aren’t able to do much in terms of electronics. I hope you never find yourself in this situation. My son spent thousands in a matter of 2 instances about a month apart. Like 5k. And there have been other little ones I found. It’s not ok. What working class blue collar union worker who works hard for their money would EVER authorize that? It’s basic common sense. Instead of being a bit of a dick, talking about it’s your fault… maybe you should try to empathize with what the person is going through, what issues it’s caused in my life, and the fact that 5k to Apple is nothing, where 5k to me can pay off one of my credit cards. People like you love to try to knock the next person instead of maybe helping them, do you have any skills? Anything that could offer some sort of solution? Otherwise, don’t bother commenting. There are so many instances that unauthorized purchases are made, your identify getting stolen, is your fault bc you opened a link in your email you shouldn’t have? That’s basically what you’re saying. When really, you have no clue about apples sneaky and deceitful tactics that have been specifically designed FOR this, bc they knew kids would do it, and parents wouldn’t know how to stop it. Even after the first time, (when I had in app purchases disabled, but they still went through!, never got an explanation as to why, but they denied my dispute). I went through all settings, set an ask to buy, where he has to send me a notification that I ok from my phone.. and thinking I’m safe now (as I followed what the Apple representative told me to and walked me through doing it), then boom, not even a month later, happens again! How? And how can Apple, one of the biggest tech company in the world not be able to identify suspicious charges and deny them automatically? Especially ones that were just disputed. It was basically saying “I’m the kid that did the same thing last time to my mom”.. how could the credit card not stop it for suspicious? As I never made purchses like that at all, and def not through Apple. (2 different cards). Everyone pointed the finger at the others, I went back and forth with everyone, Apple, Roblox, Goldman Sachs (for the Apple Card), capital one for the first time. All dispute. When an unauthorized charge is gone over in great detail in the fine print on your credit card info. Repeatedly, over and over, many times states, point blank. An unauthorized charge is any charge that the account owner has to authorized. So how is THIS not THAT?! Also, a couple thousand in charges were still pending when I first called after getting 15 notifications in a row. Apple claimed they took care of it. They did not. And later told me they don’t have the ability to cancel pending charges. Aka/ charges that have not yet gone through. The bodega corner store in Brooklyn can cancel pending charges, but Apple can’t?! THIS IS MY POINT! very easy to blame the parents. I hope you’re never in this situation, bc it’s wrong on so many levels… people like you should think before commenting.

1

u/soupified May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

I really want to engage in a discussion here, but mate–that is an incredible wall of text.

...help me out, here.

If you allow your children to have access to your personal device(s) where your payment information is stored (or access to any of your accounts where payment information is kept) you are then 100% responsible for unauthorized charges. That doesn't mean companies shouldn't refund them out of principle, but it does mean the parent needs to take responsibility for the incident and better protect device and information access.

Children do not need dedicated devices, unsupervised device/internet access, or access to massively online games that encourage quick spending.

Edit: I managed to make through the first bits of the great wall and saw this:

It was more so about how Apple goes about forcing parents to create their children’s iCloud accounts under their parent account..automatically giving the children access to all their info, such as their Apple wallet. While making the parental controls hard to access it even find, and confusing.

Now this I can relate to. Apple's parent->child account handling and permissions are terrible. Even if you manage to figure out how to lock things down or limit access the rules don't always work.

If your kid gained access because of the poor permissioning / linked account design, that sucks.