A youngster who racked up a £245 bill using his grandma’s credit card has been taught a harsh lesson - getting no birthday or Christmas presents for two years until the debt repaid.
In what’s become a bit of an unfortunate trend, the 10-year-old boy managed to spend $300 making purchases on Fortnite, much to his uncle’s disappointment.
In a post on Reddit, his fed up uncle said the boy had sneakily made several purchases over a year or two - despite him deleting the credit card information on more than one occasion.
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He explained: “One of my nephews, 10 years old at the time, asked to borrow my Nintendo Switch so he could play Fortnite.
“I said yes because I never played it. After a bit, he asked my mom (his grandma) for $10 for the battle pass. She said yes and stupidly put her credit card in his account for it. Some point in the future, another $10 or so was charged to it. 'On accident' according to the nephew. Oh well, not a big deal. She let it go.
“Maybe it's lack of experience but I find the whole account thing between Nintendo switch, epic games, and Fortnite to be confusing. I tried over and over to delete her card info out of the accounts, but he would always get it back somehow.”
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The man said that ‘over the next year or two’ the boy changed ‘something like $300’ to the card without his gran’s permission and would always claim it was a ‘mistake’.
The uncle said his mother wouldn’t do anything to her grandson other than to tell him to stop.
After attempting to stay out of it, the uncle eventually got fed up with seeing his mum being taken for a ride, and decided he wanted to exact his ‘petty revenge’.
Knowing that his mum would never demand the cash back herself, the bloke decided that on each birthday and Christmas he would give the money he’d usually spend on a gift for his nephew to his mum until the debt was repaid.
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He explained: “It's been 2 years now without any gifts from me. He may not even notice. But I do, and I feel good about it. She still buys him gifts of course. But she's being repaid one way or another.”
The post was flooded with responses from fellow Reddit users - many of whom thought his idea was great.
One person said: “This is awesome, and as someone else suggested, make up an invoice with the original $300 at the top and line item each deduction.”
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Another wrote: “This is actually a reasonable response and a good way to rectify the situation without causing an issue.”
While a third commented: “This story is so satisfying somehow.”
Topics: Technology, Parenting
Claire Reid