[4] Compiled from: Youth Digest, Sohu
 
[5] The development of online transactions has brought convenience to people's lives, but it has also caused headaches for many parents. Some naive children use their parents' phones to recharge games, often spending tens of thousands of yuan at a time. So, can parents get this money back?

 

 
Case 1: A 5-year-old boy spent over ten thousand yuan on in-game purchases; police intervened more than 20 times to recover the money.
Ms. Mi went to the bank counter to withdraw money and found that over 10,000 yuan in her card had vanished, leaving only about 2,000 yuan. Anxious, she immediately called the police. She then requested her bank transaction records and discovered multiple charges of varying amounts, such as 20 yuan, 60 yuan, 114 yuan, 322 yuan, and 628 yuan. However, she didn't recall making these purchases and rarely shopped online. So how did the money disappear?

 
The investigating officer found that the missing money was linked to in-game purchases in Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite. He asked Ms. Mi if anyone in her household frequently used her phone. Reminded by the officer, Ms. Mi recalled that her son, Xiaoyi, often played games on her phone.
 
Xiaoyi admitted to using his mother's phone to top up games. Initially, he spent just 1 yuan to get a hero skin, but as he spent more, his gaming experience improved, leading him to spend even more money for a better experience.
 
After learning the situation, the officer immediately helped Ms. Mi apply for a refund from the game company. After a month and a half and over 20 rounds of communication, the game company recently refunded the full 12,000 yuan that Xiaoyi had spent back to Ms. Mi's bank account.
 
 
Case 2: An 11-year-old mischievous kid became obsessed with "Chicken Dinner" and spent nearly ten thousand yuan in just a few days.
In early May, Ms. Huang's 11-year-old son Xiao Li became obsessed with "Chicken Dinner" while attending online classes on his phone at home. Attracted by the flashy skins and powerful gear in the game, Xiao Li obtained Ms. Huang's WeChat payment password and made multiple transactions, spending over 8,600 yuan from her bank card to purchase equipment, skins, characters, and game memberships.
 
This 8,600 yuan was the hard-earned money saved by Ms. Huang and her husband, whose family income mainly comes from picking tea leaves and raising pigs. It would take them most of the year to save that amount, but their son spent it all on the game. Upon learning this, Ms. Huang was so distressed that she cried and had no choice but to seek help from the police.
 
After adding Tencent customer service through the police's WeChat official account, they filed an appeal as required. Following nearly a month of communication and waiting, Tencent completed its verification. On June 8, Ms. Huang received a refund of 8,682.47 yuan from Tencent, and all the money Xiao Li spent on the game was returned.
 
 
Case 3: A 14-year-old girl spent 60,000 yuan on a game and later jumped off a building out of shame.
On May 6, 2020, a girl became obsessed with a mobile game. Besides defeating monsters and clearing levels, a major selling point was the ability to create her own "world." She could customize her character's appearance, freely match outfits, and even decorate her "home." To have all this, she had to "spend money."
 
In the first few days of playing, the girl's spending was relatively small—sometimes tens of yuan, sometimes two or three hundred, at most two or three times a day. But after a few days, the transaction records showed five or six payments daily, each at the highest tier of 648 yuan. On the most extreme day, she made seven payments of 648 yuan within two minutes, spending over 4,500 yuan in a single day. In just one month, the girl spent 61,678 yuan, and this "huge sum" was spent after she secretly linked her mother's WeChat account.
 
It wasn’t until her mother noticed something wrong with the balance and wondered what had happened that the girl panicked. Guilt and fear consumed her, and she sent her mother a final confession via text message: "Mom, it was me. I don’t want to live anymore. Can you forgive me? Thank you, Mom." Then she climbed onto the windowsill and jumped.
 

 

 
[1] The author's perspective
The author believes that the consumption behavior of the child mentioned above isunreasonable,and its unreasonableness lies in the fact that the child’s mind is not yet fully mature, and their understanding of such large-sum consumption is incomplete. This is what we often refer to as persons with limited or no civil capacity.
 
Full civil capacityfalls into two categories. One refers to natural persons who are at least 18 years old and mentally healthy. The other refers to natural persons aged 16 or older but under 18, who are considered to have full civil capacity if their main source of livelihood is their own labor income. The criterion for "having one’s own labor income as the main source of livelihood" is the ability to earn income through one’s own labor and maintain a standard of living generally comparable to that of the local population.
 
[1] Limited capacity for civil conduct[2] There are also two situations. One is minors over the age of eight with normal mental state. The other is adults who cannot fully recognize their own actions. This is not limited to mental patients but also includes adults with other mental disorders such as dementia.
 
[3] No capacity for civil conduct[4] There are three situations. One is minors under the age of eight. The second is minors over the age of eight who cannot recognize their own actions due to mental illness. The third is adults who cannot recognize their own actions.
 
[5] In the above case one, the five-year-old boy is a person with[3] No capacity for civil conduct[6] no capacity for civil conduct. His civil legal acts shall be carried out by his agent. That is to say, for a person with no capacity for civil conduct, the only remedy for their civil legal acts is agency, and there is no "ratification."
 
In the above cases two and three, 11-year-old Xiao Li and the 14-year-old girl are both[1] Limited capacity for civil conductindividuals. They can independently perform civil legal acts that are appropriate to their age and intelligence, without needing the proxy or ratification of their guardians, such as purchasing small-value and simple transactions like stationery or snacks, or accepting gifts, which are purely beneficial civil legal acts.
 
Due to insufficient civil capacity, acts beyond their capacity are invalid if their guardians do not ratify or cannot ratify them. For this reason, in reality, after a child makes a large in-game recharge without parental consent, the parents can recover the money from the game platform.
 
The virtual world in mobile phones is like drugs in reality, subtly infiltrating people's lives. Even mentally mature adults can easily become addicted and struggle to extricate themselves, let alone children with immature cognition. According to the 45th "2019 National Report on Internet Usage by Minors," the number of underage internet users in China has reached 175 million. Regulating the chaos in the online world for minors is an issue that must be addressed. Even if the money children spend on games can still be recovered now, establishing correct values for minors is the top priority.