The charges were put on a credit card that Perkins gave his son for emergencies, but apparently those emergencies included buying things for Federation Internationale de Football Association games.
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Perkins complained to Microsoft and the company agreed to look into the charges.
That’s thanks to the fact that his 17-year-old son had racked up more than $8,000 CAD of in-game purchases in Federation Internationale de Football Association 16, all on his dad’s card. He later noticed previous Xbox charges, bringing the total to $8,206.43. Perkins and his son were surprised by the money involved, as the boy apparently thought that he had paid only a single one-off fee.
Although his initial approach was rebuffed, Microsoft caved in when they found out his son was a minor. His credit card company told him that the only way it would be able to do something about the bill is if he charged his son with fraud.
“It floored me. Literally floored me, when I’d seen what I was being charged”, Perkins told CBC News earlier this month.
“It’s much better have it in my bank account than somewhere it never should have gone”, says Perkins. Well, that didn’t work, and his next option – asking Microsoft to drop the bill – didn’t work, either. After internal deliberation, Microsoft chose to refund the full sum on Monday.
Lance Perkins, the father of the teen in the case, has since stated that he is thankful for Microsoft for making that decision.
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Perkins stated that this situation should serve as a cautionary tale to other families, and urged gaming companies to install safeguards that will prevent such an unfortunate event from happening.
