Currently at this time parents, it’s not possible to control children’s spending on Roblox, limiting the way and amounts that can be spent on the platform. In a recent story, a 8 y/o spent 1,450 GBP (1,913 USD / ~ 1,726 EUR) in 3 days on her mobile device. In this story, all 255 purchases, ranging from 99p to £19.99, was made on Roblox
While Roblox has not yet commented and it’s the credit card providers who has declined any refunds, the parent put many of Roblox’s and Apple’s safety features, this was not enough to prevent this issue.
To fix that, I would like to introduce a new feature which allows parents to restrict the following:
type of payments options their child can use (EG, restricting only to one card, or just Roblox gift cards);
the amount they can spend and in what timespan (Only premium, or just in game purchases and clothing up to 1000 Robux in a month);
alerts when spending is too close, when unauthorised payments was made, or any such similar alerts.
While it’s easy to answer that this would reduce revenue earned, I think the ethical improvement and the reduced exploitation of children for profit is worth it for this. I gladly await any feedback from this.
Over 3 days?! If it was 3 hour I would definitely agree but honestly the parents aren’t paying enough attention to their child rather than relying on features they wouldn’t likely use, and I strongly doubt that Roblox would loose revenue due to this feature.
I honestly think that the parents already have more than enough tools to prevent this from happening but they never took action, and an 8 year old should have a basic understanding of money so I doubt that the child was unaware of what was happening.
from the article
despite the gadget being password-protected - managing to bypass the password to use her fingerprint as the default payment method.
“Apple has a range of features to help parents control spending on their devices, such as the ability to switch off in-app purchases, and we would encourage all customers to make use of them.”
—
Ms Phillips bought her daughter the £300 seventh generation iPad for Christmas.
It’s the child’s device yet they put a credit card on it.
Parents who blame platforms such as Roblox for their child’s over-excessive spending are the problem here. You simply cannot rely on someone else to watch your kids for you. If your kid spending thousands of dollars is the wakeup call you need to take their online safety more seriously, so be it. I don’t see the need for Roblox, or any other company involved, to refund the money or even apologize.
Also, in the good old U. S. of A., I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for kids to make online purchases without their parents present. So having this feature would not only be enabling terrible parenting, but also a widely-practiced illegal activity that should be discouraged against.
I fail to see how this is the responsibility of Roblox. Perhaps features exist on Android and iPhone that are similar to this? Even if they don’t the parent should not have the payment details saved on the device. This is the parents responsibility, not Roblox.
I would like to add that there is absolutely nothing Roblox could have done. She physically stole the credit card from her parents and was sending pictures of the credit card information to people through an email. This is completely out of the scope of Roblox and ultimately has to do with the parents themselves; no company or service can be blamed for this incident.
As an overall response to the feature request, I do not see the need for it. There is a major problem when it comes to parenting as too many parents let their children go on the internet without teaching them how to use it and stay safe along with keeping a close eye on them while they are young.
Kids using the internet should be taught and kept an eye on for a while similar to how new drivers obtain their permit. After a while, parents should begin to ease off but keep some restriction on, especially using parental controls on the device, to keep their children safe.
I’d like to update this feature request and say that Roblox has a spending limit system, but one that is flawed:
I don’t think the system I’m talking about was around when this feature request was made. It is also an obscure feature, maybe by design. It’s shown in the preview of the feature request I linked, but here the info anyways: It’s USD only and the option is only there for an account under 13, that has a verified parental email attached, and an account PIN.
I have empathy towards situations like these where parents lose tons of money, and Roblox can be doing more, but the internet is not childcare. I feel there’s a wide-spread issue of parents not caring, or not knowing, about online safety. Schools, parents, developers, the children themselves, and Roblox all have roles to play.