Children make excessive in-game purchases, parents have ways to recover the money

[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: 5-Year-Old Boy Spends Tens of Thousands on In-Game Purchases; Police Recover Funds After Over 20 Mediation Sessions
When Ms. Mi went to the bank counter to withdraw money, she discovered that over 10,000 yuan in savings had vanished from her card, leaving a balance of just over 2,000 yuan. Anxious, she immediately called the police. Subsequently, Ms. Mi retrieved her bank card transaction records and found multiple charges of varying amounts, including 20 yuan, 60 yuan, 114 yuan, 322 yuan, and 628 yuan. However, she did not recall spending this money, and she did not usually shop online. So how exactly 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.
 
Xiao Yi admitted that he used his mother's phone to make in-game purchases. At first, Xiao Yi spent only 1 yuan and obtained a hero skin. Later, as he continued to top up, his gaming experience improved, so he began to spend more money to pursue an even better gaming experience.
 
After learning about the situation, the police immediately assisted Ms. Mi in applying to the game company for a refund. After a month and a half and more than 20 application and communication attempts, the game company recently refunded the full 12,000 yuan that Xiao Yi had spent on in-game purchases to Ms. Mi's bank card.
 
 
Case Two: An 11-year-old mischievous child became obsessed with "PUBG" and recharged nearly 10,000 yuan in a few days.
In early May, Ms. Huang's 11-year-old son, Xiao Li, became addicted to "PUBG" while using his phone for online classes at home. Attracted by the game's flashy skins and powerful equipment, Xiao Li obtained Ms. Huang's WeChat Pay password and made multiple WeChat transactions from her bank card, spending over 8,600 yuan on equipment, skins, characters, and game memberships.
 
This 8,600 yuan represented the hard-earned savings of Ms. Huang and her husband, accumulated through months of grueling work. Her family's income relied primarily on tea picking and pig farming, and it took the couple over half a year to save that amount. Yet their son spent it all on in-game purchases. When Ms. Huang learned what had happened, she was so distressed that tears streamed down her face. Left with no other option, she turned to the police for help.
 
After the police officer added Tencent customer service via the WeChat official account and 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 from Tencent totaling 8,682.47 yuan, and all the money Xiao Li had spent on in-game purchases was returned.
 
 
Case Three: A 14-year-old girl spent 60,000 yuan on in-game purchases and later jumped to her death out of shame.
On May 6, 2020, a girl became obsessed with a mobile game. Beyond fighting monsters and clearing levels, a major selling point was the ability to create a “world” of her own. The character’s appearance could be customized, outfits could be mixed and matched freely, and even her “home” could be decorated as she pleased. To have all this, she had to “top up.”
 
In the first few days after she started playing the game, the girl's top-ups were relatively small—sometimes just a few dozen yuan, sometimes two or three hundred, at most two or three times a day. But a few days later, the recharge records showed five or six transactions per day, each at the highest tier of 648 yuan. On the most extreme day, she spent seven 648-yuan payments within two minutes, topping up over 4,500 yuan in a single day. In just one month, the girl had recharged 61,678 yuan, and this “huge sum” was spent after she secretly linked her mother's WeChat account.
 
It was only when her mother noticed the balance was off and wondered what was going on that the girl panicked. Overwhelmed by guilt and fear, 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 capacityThere are two scenarios. The first refers to natural persons aged 18 or above who are mentally healthy. The second refers to natural persons aged 16 or above but under 18 whose main source of income is their own labor, who are deemed to have full civil capacity. The criterion for determining “whose main source of income is their own labor” is the ability to earn income through one’s own labor and maintain a standard of living comparable to that of the general local population.
 
[1] Limited capacity for civil conductThere are also two scenarios. The first involves minors over the age of 8 who are mentally sound. The second involves adults who are unable to fully comprehend their own actions. This is not limited to mentally ill individuals 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.
 
In the first case above, the 5-year-old boy is a[3] No capacity for civil conductFor such persons, their civil juristic acts shall be performed by their agents on their behalf. In other words, for a person with no capacity for civil conduct, the only way to remedy their civil juristic acts is through agency, and there is no "ratification."
 
In the aforementioned Case 2 and Case 3, the 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 inside mobile phones is like a drug in real life, quietly infiltrating people's lives. Even mature adults with sound judgment can easily become addicted and find it hard to break free, let alone children whose cognition is still developing. According to the 45th "2019 Research Report on Internet Use by Minors in China," the number of minor internet users in China has reached 175 million. Regulating the chaos in the online world of minors has become an issue that must be addressed. Even though money that children spend on games can now be recovered, establishing correct values in minors is the top priority.