Hyderabad woman left with no money after son spent all of it on Mobile game
Boy’s mother went to the bank to withdraw money, learned her accounts have no money
In a case which should caution parents, a mother lost all of her money after her son spent it all on the mobile game ‘Free Fire’.
The 16 year-old boy who was a resident of the Amberpet area of Hyderabad, first downloaded this game on his grandfather’s mobile phone. As he kept playing, he started to get addicted to the game and started to spend small amounts of Rs 1,500 initially and later of Rs 10,000. As time passed-by he started to spend more and more money in order to play the game. While the base game is free, spending money on the game will get you special features, skills, skins, etc.
He became addicted to the game after spending money as spending money makes the gameplay better and started spending the money without the knowledge of his family members. He kept spending money in tune of Rupees 1.45 lakh to 2 lakh regularly in the mobile game.
His mother realised this after she visited the State Bank of India which had 27 lakh to withdraw some money and was told that there was no money in her account. She also had a second account in HDFC bank with 9 lakh which was also emptied by her son.
She reported the issue to the Cyber Crime Police Station. She told a police officer that it was her late husband’s hard-earned money that she lost just because of a game. Her husband was a deceased police official and the money was also a part of the monetary benefit that she received following the officer’s death.
The addiction of today’s youth to gaming and incidences of minors spending huge amounts of money on such games without the knowledge of their parents have unfortunately become common. Such incidences and the addiction to these games were also part of the reason why the government had banned some mobile games, most prominently PUBG Mobile (later called BGMI).
Such incidences raise a very important question as to whether there should be some additional checks or security features on these games which would restrict minors from spending huge amounts of money on them. Either by limiting the amount of money that can be spent in a day to a very small or nominal amount or sending their parents emails, messages or even calling them to ask for permission to proceed with the request of purchase in the game store.
