Pre teen stealing card to buy Fortnite V bucks for the last couple months. Totalling over $70 in one month alone. I'm lost on how to proceed

[saulos]

Hey guys, bit of backstory posting for my parents (I'm the older 25yr old daughter) my little brother just turned 12yrs in August and my parents are in their 50's with heart problems, so I'm basically living with them to help raise him so they aren't so stressed out.

Tonight my mom sent me her e statement and was wondering where the two $8.71 Nintendo charges came from. So I logged into my little brothers eShop and checked his purchase history to find out that he's been stealing money from my mom's debit card since July with her old card and her new card when she got it in August. I asked her if she forgot to take her card off of the account and she said she never even used it for anything on his Nintendo. So, that also raised the question whether she just forgot or he stole mom's card at some point to put the info in. They are beyond upset and disappointed and are going to "talk" to him tomorrow. They took his phone and switch away as he is currently asleep because he has school tomorrow. But, I don't think that's enough.. I honestly don't know what else to do. He's only 12 and if he's doing this now I'm afraid of what he would be capable of in a couple years. I really want and need him to understand what the consequences are and can be. But I'm not sure how.

Long story short- little brother (12yr) possibly stole mom's card to buy over $70 worth of in game currency on Minecraft and Fortnite without telling them and I'm not sure how you would punish this and effectively engraving it in his mind that this is bad and has consequences that could lead him in to legal trouble later on should he not learn that stealing is bad.

 

[celeneharrelson]

@saulos My daughter did this with roblox. Ended up costing $350 in one month.

I called Apple and they reversed $250 of it but their system is based on AI. The guy said he’s seen the system not return 45k in charges before and there wasn’t much they could do.

Since it’s on a credit card you can call and have the charges reversed (likely)

As far as punishment goes I took away her ipad, tv, etc. This was during the pandemic so it was really rough.

To make it easier I created a chart which detailed the amount of money she owed (all $350) and she had to earn every penny back to earn her things back.

In order to make it visual I filled in the chart as we went. I split it into 3 chunks each giving her a little more freedom back until the debt is paid.

We had a money based chore system already in place with little time cards for the kids to write down their chores. They got paid every two weeks on “payday” like we do.

It worked well. She’s never done it again and often brings the experience up when talking about honesty. Best money I ever spent.

The way I phrased it to my daughter was that she was stealing from the family. At the time we were saving for a house so I explained that her actions were delaying us reaching our family goals. That it was wrong and that she would go to jail if she did something like that as a grown up.

 

[saulos]

@celeneharrelson Thank you so much! This is so helpful.

 

[katrina2017]

@saulos I could try and help you in this case. I'm a 13-year-old kid (male) and I myself am a huge gamer and find myself playing both of these games. I have myself done this before, except only with about 20$ because in my heart I knew it was bad so I didn't want to be punished too badly if I was to be caught. Now, while I have never been caught about it, I still think about it a lot and how bad it was for me to do, and since I hear that this kid has anxiety, I can relate to him a lot. Gaming is a nice escape from stressful things such as school and social gatherings, and honestly, in gaming nowadays, you always have to spend a little money in order to enjoy the games to their full potential. I know that some people don't see it the same as me, but in Fortnite (like mentioned in the post) you can get in-game cosmetics such as outfits, backblings, dances, weapon wraps, harvesting tools, gliders, and contrails. All of these things for the most part cost a lot of money. The average outfit can cost from 800 vbucks to 2,000 vbucks. 800 vbucks is about $6 and 2000 is about $16, and so it with easily over 1000+ outfits, it can be absolutely insanely enticing to buy a couple of cosmetics. I highly recommend letting him down easily about it, because it can be stressful to be caught using a parental guardian's money without their permission. I recommend making something like a list of chores he can do in order to buy things for the game, as that is what I do with my parents and they love it since I am willing to help clean the house for a cheap $8 every week. It's a really nice system, and for the start, he can just do chores to work off the $70 he spent on it. I love both of these games to death and have been playing them for 3-4 years each. It is a really fun experience collecting outfits and cosmetics and all of that. I hope this helps, I tried to give the best advice as I could as I'm a kid that as his age can see why he did it.

 

[sctarch]

@saulos I think you need to strike a balance- let him know that he messed up, but that it's not the end of the world. You mentioned anxiety - when my kiddo with anxiety messes up, we make sure to reassure her that it's normal to mess up because she's a kid, bit that what she can do to help make it up to us is to learn from her mistake. Lots of reassurance that we still love her. There are still consequences to her actions (I like the structured replayment/earning of privileges mentioned above), but we find we need to be softer in our words as she is so hard on herself already.

 

[judgenotbutyourself]

@saulos It's typical for kids that age to buy games online. A lot of systems do this rather than using cartridges like we used to have.

I would just set ground rules that he ask before any purchases. Talk to him about the value of money and what the money was needed for. This hardly means he has a bad future. Set a parameter such as only $40/month on gaming. Gaming is a hobby and it's much better than some of the activities a kid that age could be doing. Good luck.

 

[saulos]

@judgenotbutyourself You're so right Thank you!

 

[tenson]

@saulos Take the electronics access away, aside from school work no online activity until he earns the cash to return to your parents. Allow him to earn it through extra chores, grades, effort in the house, and he'll be less likely to ever do it again. It's punitive enough to have an effect without dire punishment. Restrict any future access of purchases on phone and switch through a password that only you have.

Side note: He doesn't have to know but your mom can contact them, tell them a minor made the purchases without permission, they'll refund the purchases.

 

[saulos]

@tenson Thank you! My mom and I are working on a chore=cash chart right now. I'll have to see if the bank will dispute those since it wasn't just one company and spread out across three months. We'll see what we can do about that. Thank you!

 

[storm6979]

@saulos I think y’all did right to ground him from all those things. You might also make him write an essay about why it’s wrong to steal and how that could have greater consequences if he did it as an adult. You might also threaten to have him prosecuted as a thief if he does it again. Put some fear in him.

 

[saulos]

@storm6979 He has anxiety issues so we don't want to scare him too bad that he has a panic attack. But we will definitely have him write something down about the consequences of his actions had he been older and stealing from strangers instead of parents.

 

[just_a_christian]

@saulos First consider coming up with a solution to support his gaming hobby. Does he need to do chores to earn the money? Make good grades for an allowance? Receive a large gaming card for birthday? Or simply have a hobby budget?

I would present this solution to him FIRST before you talk to him about honesty and consequences. I disagree with the opinion that your little brother was stealing from the family.
When I was little, I felt that family resources are shared, especially at the age when I legally could not earn anything. I never took money from my parents but never judged little kids who did. This was usually a reflection of a gap in parenting rules.