A Chinese boy from the city of Wuchang spent nearly 6,400 euros on a mobile game in just half a day. The money actually belonged to his 67-year-old grandfather, who is now hoping to get the amount back from the game studio.
The Asia-focused site 2p reports on an unusual spending spree in China. Yanyan is 8 years old and lives in the Chinese city of Wuchang. The little boy asked his grandfather on July 28 at 8:00 AM to give him his smartphone. Yanyan wanted to play a mobile game on it.
At the same time, the boy asked to spend a little money on the game. Yanyan agreed with his grandfather on an amount of 20 yuan, which is about 2.60 euros. This seemed like a small amount to the grandfather. He gave his grandson the password to his Alipay and thought nothing more of it. Alipay is a payment app in China that is used online.
When Yanyan returned the smartphone to his grandfather in the afternoon, he experienced a nasty surprise. Shocked, he realized that a whole series of Alipay payments had been made.
In total, the grandfather found 30 transfers that had been made from his smartphone. In the morning, he still had 50,000 yuan (about 6,400 euros) in his account. Of the 50,000, only 1,000 yuan were left. The rest of the money had disappeared in a period of just 7 to 8 hours.
Yanyan bought 5 million crystals in the game, of which he barely used half.
The grandfather’s family relies on the money – hopes for a refund
The grandfather saved the money over many years along with his wife. His son is in poor health. The sudden loss of the money would put the family in a difficult situation.
Yanyan played the mobile game “Pokenmon VS,” which was developed by the Chinese studio Manatee Company. Yanyan’s mother contacted the customer service of the studio. She hopes that Manatee will refund the money. However, this has not happened yet.
There can be problems when children and adolescents use online game services uncontrollably. Gaming addiction can be one of these problems. To protect minors from gaming addiction, the publisher Tencent has imposed strict protective measures for one of its mobile games.
