This is a latest news from China which we received where a 13 year old girl spent their whole family savings of 449,500 CNY (Rs 52,19,809) When the family checked and found that they just have Rs.5 in their account they were shocked, they have come to know that their daughter used her debit card and did a lot of in-game purchases and even purchased them for her friends at the school.
As per a report by South China Morning Post, this incident was identified when the girl’s school teacher found that the girl is very addicted to the smartphone, playing games and informed the girl’s parents. Then girl’s parents upon checking found that they are just left with Rs.5 in their bank account.
Upon asking the girl further acknowledged that she used the mother’s debit card to do purchase games, in-app purchases and even spent 100,000 yuan (approximately Rs. 11,61,590) on multiple game purchases for their 10 school friends. She found the debit card in their home and added it to her smartphone and started spending on games and left the family in a shock, she even also deleted the transaction history for the online purchases so that her mother doesn’t find it. This could be knowingly or unknowingly done by the girl as she might not understand the value of money but the whole family is impacted as their whole life savings went like a breeze.
Other biggest question now is who should be responsible for this loss? A few are saying that the parents should be cautious and should keep an eye on their kids what they are doing on smartphone. This could be a mistake with the girl as well as she spent the money without any knowledge. As per a report by McGill university which was released in 2022, China stands at no.1 with highest number of smartphone addicts and Saudi Arabia, Malaysia are the next in the row.
Parent’s should be very cautious while giving smartphone to kids, maintain the screen time and make sure they doesn’t use it for a longer time. Even the game applications should have certain age or other restrictions so that minors won’t be able to do any purchases without a confirmation from the parents, game time should be also be restricted for minors.