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Dad Forced To Sell Family Car After Son Racks Up £1,300 iTunes Bill Playing Dragon Game

Dad Forced To Sell Family Car After Son Racks Up £1,300 iTunes Bill Playing Dragon Game

Seven-year-old Ashaz Mutasa purchased a number of expensive top-ups while playing Dragons: Rise of Berk

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

A dad has been forced to sell up the family car after his son racked up a £1,300 ($1,800) bill in just an hour playing a mobile game.

Seven-year-old Ashaz Mutasa purchased a number of expensive top-ups while he was playing the game, called 'Dragons: Rise of Berk' and his dad didn't find out until it was too late.

The top-ups ranged in price from between £1.99 ($2.70) and £99.99 ($138) and 41-year-old Muhammad - Ashaz's dad - only realised what had happened when he discovered the 29 email receipts waiting for him.

Now, he's had to sell his Toyota Aygo in order to pay off the £1,289.70 bill from Apple iTunes.

In-game purchases can be as much as £109.
Triangle News

He said: "Initially, my thought was that I had been scammed. I never thought it would be possible to spend that much money on a kids' game."

Ashaz was only on the game for about an hour, but Muhammad - who works as a doctor - had no idea the game offers a whole heap of in-game purchases that are unlimited in number and can range up to as much as £109 ($150) in price.

He has since complained to Apple and been awarded a refund of £207 ($287), but the family - from Colwyn Bay, North Wales - have had to lose their family runabout so that the rest of the bill could be paid off.

Muhammad, who lives with his wife Fatima, and Ashaz's siblings Areefa and Aliyah, continued: "I said to customer services, 'Well done, you've ripped me off, you have succeeded in ripping my child off'."

Muhammad and Ashaz.
Triangle News

Apple said it would comment on specific cases, but added that they take all such incidents 'very seriously' and advised parents to take precautions when letting their kids play games on mobile devices.

After all, many of these games make their money through in-app purchases.

It advised that features such as Parental Controls, Apple ID per user, iCloud Family Sharing and Ask to Buy could prevent mistakes like this from happening.

The game 'Dragons: Rise of Berk' is based upon the popular How to Train Your Dragon movie franchise, and allows players to create their own version of the fictional 'Isle of Berk' from the films.

The game's download pages advertises more than 600 dragons that users can 'discover' as well as 60 unique islands.

The Toyota Aygo that has had to be sold.
Triangle News

Players must complete various missions with the various dragons in order to progress through the game.

The download page also states: "Please note: Rise of Berk is completely free to play but offers some game items for purchase with real money."

Featured Image Credit: Triangle News

Topics: UK News, Money, Technology, Wales, Apple, Cars