A single mom from Florida has had her bank account wiped out after her 7-year-old son spent all the money playing Roblox. Roblox, for the uninitiated, is a free-to-play multiplayer creation game where players design their own game modes for others to take part in. But like many other games that are marketed as being "free-to-play," Roblox heavily promotes microtransactions that cost real money.Roblox players can trade real-world money for the digital currency Robux, which is used to make various purchases in the game. Following Russian's invasion of Ukraine, Robux actually became more valuable than the Russian ruble, which puts into perspective the sheer number of people that not only play Roblox, but spend money in the game.One of these avid Roblox players is the 7-year-old son of Kayla Howard, a single mom of four who is currently working two jobs to support her family. As reported by Florida's local WESH 2 news, Howard's bank account was wiped out when her son spent $897 on Roblox microtransactions. This was enough to overdraft Howard's account and has effectively eliminated the money that was being saved for Christmas gifts and rent. Howard has reportedly asked both Google (the purchases were seemingly made through the Google Play Store) and Roblox for a refund, but has so far only received $10 back from Google at the time of this writing with no word from Roblox.
This is far from the first time a child has spent an excessive amount of money in a mobile game. In fact, other instances of this happening have been far more extreme, like the situation a couple of years ago where a 6-year-old child spent more than $16,000 on microtransactions in Sonic Forces: Speed Battle. Oftentimes the kids are young enough to not really have a strong grasp on the concept of money, and in some cases they likely do not even realize that they are spending real money in the video game. For these reasons, parents are sometimes given full refunds when something like this occurs.
While there are instances where parents are simply out of luck when their kids spend their money in mobile games, there are times when refunds are issued. For example, there was a situation where someone's daughter spent $20,000 on Genshin Impact microtransactions, but those charges were ultimately refunded. It remains to be seen if Roblox will do the same for Howard, but hopefully the unfortunate situation is resolved soon.
Source: WESH 2