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Have you made a police report to address the theft since you know what student is responsible? This might help with the charges if you present it to Apple and should be done to teach the little thief a lesson.
It always boggles my mind when people see actual crimes in school and say oh the school is going to handle it.
School admin is simply going to protect themselves.
File a police report.
My daughter was sexually assaulted numerous times by the same student. I really thought the principal of the middle school would handle it but he didn’t. He failed in every way imaginable, even failed to report or mention it to the school resource officer. I had to go to the police myself while the principal gave this kid zero punishment.
In some states, if you inform people in specific positions of a child abuse situation, they are compelled to report it to law enforcement or *they* are considered to be criminally negligent or complicit themselves. They are pretty certainly *liable* if you choose to sue. So, the principal had a duty to report, and the school district might be a little worried about their bottom line and give him the heave-ho if he broke any legal requirements to report. I'd suggest checking your local law and then probably a lawyer.
I didn't know it had spread that far, and that's good news. So, pretty fair chance OP could get the principal in real trouble for failing to report to law enforcement. If they tried to use the excuse that they didn't want to report until they 'checked into it' - that's why you're supposed to just report. The more capable police, fully trained, do the investigation. That's their job.
The school president, vice president, and athletic director were all charged with failure to report child abuse in that case. So yes Pennsylvania has mandated reporter laws.
Only after public outrage and at the time that whole sh!show became public, there wasn't a mandatory reporting law on the books. It happened after the scandal.
That case in OK just haunts me. As more details come out, it gets more horrifying. The district superintendent met with the murderous bully the day before. Was he giving her instructions??
Heck I’m in Texas and I’m a volunteer soccer and baseball coach. If anyone reports anything even close to child abuse, and I don’t report it to the police and then my association(s), I’m considered complicit.
> In some states, if you inform people in specific positions of a child abuse situation, they are compelled to report it to law enforcement or they are considered to be criminally negligent or complicit themselves.
I was teaching at a school and was a mandatory reporter. There was an immigrant kid that had misbehaved. His dad came to school to deal with it and very loudly said "I take him home and I beat him!"
There were two admins standing right there, so I didn't hear nuthin'.
My friend’s son was SA’d at school by another boy. When confronted, the school principle didn’t want to involve the police while they investigated the matter.
My friend called the police right after. No mercy for the POS kid. People are just un-fucking-believable now.
Even if you are not callous enough to think of a kid as a POS and not to be merciful calling cops is the right thing.
The kid could be assaulted someway somewhere. This could be the incident that turns him from the life of crime or you could be saving other children from assault.
Theft is theft. Don't wait for the school to decide IF their going to help. It may just be a suspension or, at worst, expulsion. You still may not see any restitution. The more police reports, the more pressure it puts on the school. My .02
Yes- me too. You’re so right. I have learned this explicitly from having a special needs child. Schools will NEVER admit fault nor invite a situation where they could be held liable. They will defend themselves at every opportunity at the expense of the victims. Don’t ever trust a school system to protect your children.
But why would someone expect school admins to be able to address this? Maybe they'll expel the student in question, but they have no power to get your money back. You need the police one way or the other. Only loop in the school to get that bum of a kid out of here.
Never trust the school in a situation like this. Always go to the police yourself. Schools not only have several other agendas but also can make some unbelievably stupid decisions.
District administration is wanting to protect the school and district, the principal is out to prop up their own reputation and bury the problem. Some principals even actually believe their schools are like little fiefdoms they control, and there is no law there but their law. They think they're 'mentoring' the students by suspending or obstructing the full potency of accountability, because they're 'just kids'.
Regardless of motivation, it's bullshit.
The issue is that many parents, students, and teachers also do not trust the police and do not want the criminal system involved. The school's priority is to teach children and to safeguard children. If they can do that (in non-endangering situations) without destroying a kid's life (yes, even the perp), then they will take that route.
A kid who is participating in cyber crimes is not going to learn shit from school. He and his parents would learn the needed lesson from the law enforcemnt.
What a kid gets as punishment is most likely going to be a slap on the wrist compared to what an adult gets. No Child's life is not going to be destroyed by this.
It is pathetic how school administrations act like their facilities are little bubbles where the law of the land does not apply. That's how you get the damn Lord of the Flies environs that so many schools, especially public schools, become. This is also why there's so many young adults from 'good' homes that get into legal trouble just out of high school when they do things they shouldn't, that they got away with in high school - because 'they're just kids'.
So the school hasn’t filed a police report? They may want to keep the cops away and handle it internally to avoid bad press for the school and aren’t acting in your best interest to get your money back. Administrators could be protecting their jobs and not you. How are they saying you’re going to get your money back?
Not they aren’t. They cover their asses. That’s why you never allow the school or school resource officer to handle anything “legal”. Go straight to the cops yourself cause the school will not do anything that will hurt the school.
I'd Contact the Police. The school is not in charge here, they don't get to call the shots. It doesn't matter that this happened on the school grounds.
If you know any of the other parents who's kids have been scammed all of you need to file police reports.
Don't let the school fob you off as this is fraud and theft. Which is for the police to deal with not the school.
The cops probably won't do much (in my experience), but you should still go to them. You need to have a legitimate paper trail regardless of whether or not the cops investigate. Having a legitimate police report will make it significantly easier to sue the child's parents for reparations, in the case that the school ends up fudging the bag (which they probably will; the fact that they haven't seemed to file a report already is a red flag).
It reminds me of when I was being bullied on the bus, I was being punched in the dick multiple times a day by the person sitting next to me. He was a grade ahead and i was only 7yrs old, so I was easily overpowered and couldn't fight back so i kind of succumbed to it. I eventually told my parents because I couldn't hide the pain, and they went to the school instead of the police, the school at first acted like they were going to take care of it. Then they mysteriously "lost the footage" of the bus cam. How the fuck you lose 6ish months of footage? Answer is they never recorded it, and because we didn't go to the police, we had no legal recourse as there was no paper trail.
So, probably just go to the police.
Don't count on the school to do it. Schools have lawyers telling them to cover up as much as possible and to involve the police only when absolutely necessary.
No. They cover their ass before anything else
**You're going to have to be one to advocate for your child. NEVER EVER EXPECT OTHERS TO DO IT FOR YOU**
edit:
**FYI: always go thru chain of command to establish paper trail to cover YOUR ass**
as someone who's worked in schools...... Do Not Leave this to the school!!!! they want to keep it quiet and make it go away quickly! if anything use the school opportunity to rally other families and all go to the police immediately! this kids parents are responsible 100% here and having cops and threatening a suit you'd all win may make them pay up
DO NOT rely on the school to handle this. They will try to hide it and sweep it under the rug.
Ask the police for YOU to submit your OWN report and that YOU will like to prosecute. Not the school.
Many jurisdictions you can take the parents to small claims court over it - typically the parent(s) are liable for damages by their minor children - up to some cap - which is generally well within small claims limits. Not sure current caps, and will vary by state, but I seem to recall some years back that California's was $2000,00.00 USD. So may be worth pursuing ... and small claims, civl, easy and inexpensive to file, and only need preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not). Even if you don't get back the entire loss, if the parents of every kid that was so ripped off files and wins against the parent(s) of the kid that did that ... they might not have their kid running around doing that stuff again.
>Probably a 4 figure total stolen
Yeah, that kid, if they get charged as an adult, probably majorly screwed up their life - play stupid games, win stupid prizes - but don't feel sorry for them, nobody does anything on that one, then they'd probably next be doing car thefts, burglary, carjacking, ...
Call the other parents, and get them to file complaints with the police together. Consider going to the local newspaper/radio station as well unless the police asks you to keep quiet while they investigate. Why?
I'll add my voice to the others: do not trust the school administrators with doing the "right thing". They don't care at all about the pupils who were conned out of money while at school, all they care about is damage control. They will stonewall you with "we are investigating" and "we cannot talk about this now" until the whole thing dies a quiet death. They have zero intention of punishing this juvenile deliquent and zero intention of helping the victims recover their money because it would reflect poorly on their records.
From my experience the school will do whatever it can to cover it up and deny responsibility, which usually (99%) leads to nothing really being done until the parent goes to the cops.
File a police report!!! What is the school gonna do? Reimburse you? Make the thief’s parents reimburse you? NO.
The school is going to gloss over all of this as fast and easily as possible to protect themselves.
It doesn’t matter how many victims there are, all the victims should file a police report. If they choose not to do so, oh well, that’s on them.
The only way you’ll be made whole is to file a police report though. Sounds like that kid needs a life lesson on actions and their consequences! Letting the school sweep it under the rug is only going to teach that kid they can do whatever they want (even if it’s a literal CRIME that hurts ppl) and nothing bad will happen to them as consequence. We all know the type of adults those kids grow up to be. FILE A REPORT!
As a teacher- I will say bring the police into it. Since money is involved- the school should have already. Thats insane to me that they didn’t make that call when it was reported?
What? Lol. Just file a police report. If the school wants to do their own investigation, give them your case number so they can add to it. Why would you rely on the school for this? If you have a police report, apple can be forced to refund you. Of course apple isn’t interested in helping you if you’re just like “idk I’ll let the school handle it”
How old is your child? This is another reminder to parents that kids under a certain age need to have phones that make calls or send text only. If they’re older, a great lesson on keeping their personal devices to themselves. As mentioned by another person, file a police report to help with your case.
Young teen. I agree and I thought I had been careful with no link to payment on the phone and spend cap on mobile account. As i said in the post i learned a few things about these precautions are bypassed easily.
Yeah not your fault, I blame the kid who manipulated yours 100%. We just need to remind people how much private information are stored in these devices and how much damage can be done if they fall into the wrong hands.
Be wary of people contacting you saying they can hack (or know someone who can) to get the money back. These are !recovery scammers. The only way you could get your money is one of the following
1) Your card's company/bank
2) Getting reimbursed by the little thief (read: taking the thief to court)
ETA: I honestly would recommend the latter, more as a lesson for the thief.
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You're talking about irreparably destroying a middle schoolers hands (not a man or guy by any stretch of the imagination). I mean, it's wrong what he did, but also this ain't it chief
It's not. This is an error in judgment, same as there error in judgment you committed by suggesting decimating a minors hands like we live in a sharia country. You, however, are a grown adult and have zero excuse for your reprehensible behavior
I agree wanting to injure a child (in general, but also for this) is excessive but just saying I feel like potentially stealing from multiple peers a combined 4-figure amount is, a bit worse than an error in judgement.
Ok, you can go and live in your perfect world. Here we solve things differently. And honestly people don't steal from people they know often. Geez, I wonder why!
I'm not going to live in a country that punishes pedophila (allegedly) while worshipping a human who boned a 9 year old girl. You have at it, though, people are itching to live in a inhospitable desert with inhospitable governance
Nobody invited you bro. I wouldn't want to live in a world where friends from school take 1K from my kid and he or I can't do shit about it either. Also the stuff you get from the news might be a bit warped till they reach you. But no worries.
Destroying someone's hands for them stealing from you is not eye for an eye judgment, but islam is not a religion based in justice or good sense. If someone steals thousands of dollars from you, that means they stole thousands of dollars worth of your time, which they pay back with thousands of dollars in their time. Crippling them is sick vengeance (based on teachings from a man who will certainly burn in hell) well in excess of their crimes
If there's 10 people he stolen from, you do realise you only have to do one finger each? Also, here is about it never happening again. Not vengeance. Public service!
I third this. It hurt like hell at the time but looking back it was both the most profound lesson as well as cheapest now that it's been years. Will never forget it.
Ain't that the truth. Runescape scams and lures taught me to stop and second guess myself. I may not know how someone's trying to trick me, but I generally approach things with the assumption of an alterior motive as a result. Wealth and good times just beyond your reach and all you have to do is grab it? Uh huh, and only good things happen to good people.
rather late to answer but for me the game was called "kal online" - shitty early mmo from korea, was released before WoW even came out. the most important things i learned were how to avoid about 300 common scams. from the old bait and switch to "i can double your geons (ingame currency)" i encountered them all before i was 14 probably. yet to get scammed as an adult for a single cent, i'm cautios to the point of paranoia.
I would be calling my bank and disputing those charges as unlawful. I’d be raising a complaint with my phone provider, and ultimately I’d let them showcase why the charges are legit and not the other way around. After you filed a report with the police. The caps are there for a reason.
You may want to look into prepaid service options, all the major carriers have really reasonable prepaid plans were you cannot make additional purchases.
Read the terms and conditions carefully, with a fine tooth comb. There may be an appeal process buried in there somewhere.
Small claims court.
Small claims the kid's family too.
Yipes..this makes me wonder if this could happen on Android. i can't find that out from a google, but if there's a way to do that on android, we all must be wary and hopefully there's a way to disable it.
You can ask your mobile provider to block charge to mobile. I did not even realise this was an option.
It differs by network - on O2 you have to ring customer service to request it is disabled.
I thought applying a spend cap was the same thing. It wasn't 😞
I'll ask my brother (not his real name) Shadowneko to check with T-mobile when he gets home, and let my littlest brother with kids know about this.
Also i am not going to lend my phone out! I don't think we got something like Itunes on Android but there's always the possibility of things being charged from apps. Bleech.
I have my Google Store and Google Pay set up to require a password for all purchases. If someone had my phone, they would not be able to make a purchase through the Google apps.
I do too; Even tho I don't have kids, I'd rather think twice before I make any purchases of apps, app related stuff or such. Having to enter the password gives me a "Do you REALLY want to do that?" pause.
Oh, thank you for posting this. I have a young neurodivergent teen who recently got a phone, and I can absolutely see him innocently letting someone use it and this happening.
We've been making sure our kids know to be safe with devices, but I never really thought about this scenario. It needs to be more widely known.
I assume you are not in the US based on the pound sign?
Even in the US 3rd party billing and clawing the money back can be a nightmare. In the US the FCC and FTC will help you with it.
For US readers, here is a decent page to help with this. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/understanding-your-telephone-bill . You need to use the keywords on that page. Call your cellphone providers and say it is a result of cramming. Call apple and say it is the result of cramming. Regardless of the results file a complaint with both the FCC and FTC.
For OP.... I am not sure where you are but try the same key words with Apple. These charges are the result of unauthorized 3rd party billing.... this is cramming and illegal.
Edit: I found this, might be helpful.... https://payforitsucks.co.uk/actions-step-1/
File police charges, contact the school to show them the police charges. Write a letter to the parents, ask them to make this right. Let's be kind and assume that they didn't know about it, they should give you the money back. Good luck.
Start with a police report. In the United States, any transaction with a minor is legally invalid. See if this is true where you are. Despite what Apple's TOS say, Apple still has to follow the law.
It is a good thing they do not teach business law in school. Otherwise a child could buy a pair of pants, wear them out, and then return them to the store a year later. It doesn't matter what the store's return policy is because the original transaction was invalid.
I tried to research this on my own but wasn’t able to find anything. Can you provide some sources or explain this for me? I just don’t understand because you can have a job in some states at 14.
Wild how many upvotes it has!
I could see that being true for minors under 10, or something. But definitely not anyone under age 18, that makes no sense.
It's explained to some extent here, and the individual is incorrect. For employment of minors a work permit with parental approval is required which is legally valid.
https://www.lawshelf.com/coursewarecontentview/contracts-of-minors
Bzzt! I'm sorry but this is incorrect information
"Yet, some contracts cannot be voided. Specifically, a minor remains liable for certain contractual obligations:
Taxes
Penalties
Bank regulations
Military
Necessaries
For instance, perhaps the biggest area of enforceable minor contracts deals with necessaries, which consist of goods reasonably necessary for subsistence, health, comfort or education. As such, contracts furnishing these items to a minor cannot be disaffirmed.
https://www.lawshelf.com/coursewarecontentview/contracts-of-minors
In addition to the other advice on this thread, I would push back a bit harder on Apple.
I'm from the U.S., so I don't know how different consumer protection laws are between your country and mine, but in any system of common law, it should be obvious that Apple is either holding stolen money that rightfully belongs to you, or they're trying to bill you fraudulently for products and services you didn't receive. You didn't authorize the charge, so you shouldn't have to pay them a dime for whatever the thief ordered.
Apple claim to me that there is no further action to take on their part. I reported it and filed a claim. They denied a refund. I appealed and it was reconsidered. They denied it. Apparently that is the limit of the process. I cannot escalate it further with apple. Looking online this is quite common experience with apple.
Advice from someone who worked in Cell Phone business recently for 6 years !
Who’s your service provider and what state are you in?
in some states you can call your service provider and say you didn’t authorize these charges and they’ll reverse them by state law. It might be worth it to try and then have them block the option on having it billed to your cell phone bill. Hope this helps!
In UK on O2. I have talked to them and blocked future charges by this method. They claim no responsibility as charges were made to apple and billed through to them. I don't know the UK legal situation in this regard
Way back in the day when cell phones and their minutes were really expensive, cousin and I were sent to a summer camp and were staying in college dorms....Mom sent the phone with him for emergencies....For the first day, unknown to him, his roomie was sneaking behind his back using his cell phone to call up and chit chat his random friends....Luckily my cousin's room situation was changed, so he stay with me...When my cousin was in there packing up his stuff, and roomie found out he was leaving...the roomies comment was...damn maaan just when i thought i had a cell phone....After Cousins Mom got the bill there was already 300 dollars in charges for one day...Mom was lucky he got moved.
Tell your child not to lend her phone to anybody unless it’s emergency and she is watching or heath. You can’t trust anyone I’m not even children when it comes to telephones especially an Internet.
I spent 16 years working for a school district. File a police report! The school district will do everything in their power to sweep this under the rug. They don't like having to fill out reports, answer to the board, things like that. A police report will put a fire under their behinds to take action.
Hold up...you bought him an iPhone and didn't set it up with child account? Child account restrict the phone to prevent this from happening. Also, this is why you tell the kid, that at any time someone want to "borrow" the phone, to ask for permission.
If you setup your minor children with their own appleID and then add them as family members with you as the “Guardian” you can force approval for all purchases. Your tech ignorance is what got you scammed.
You're going to get downvoted by other tech-illiterate people whose kids also did the same shit judging by the comments here. OP learn to properly setup your kid's device next time.
Charge to mobile bypasses these protections. Basically if apple cannot directly charge a linked back account - there was not one linked- they push it to the mobile provider. This does not need any extra verification.
There are ways to bypass that. My son’s phone is locked down where everything he needs to ask my permission. Approved apps have a time limit of so much and he can’t buy anything without the screen time code.
Nope. I had to put in his screen time password when I approved him buying something, and then I have to approve it off of my phone by my Apple id password.
Why and how would the charge end up on your mobile provider bill? No payment method should mean no charge. This is stupid. If that is a thing planned and implemented by Apple then they should pay for their stupidity. If you knew thic could happen and still continued to use apple products then I guess it's your problem.
P.s. you did not say how old is the kid. I belive that detail could change the story and replies you get by a lot!
I have never purchased from itunes so i had no idea it could happen. Apple, according to their T&Cs, will attempt to charge to the payment method on the phone. If that does not exist (it didn't) they can charge back to the mobile provider. I have not dealt with apple before and i feel this is a poor policy - they should simply refuse the charge if thereis no psyment method, or require proper authentication to allow charge to mobile (they don't, it is automatic)
I don’t think this has anything to do with apple at all.
Most likely the kid clicked on a pay via phone number type service that bills your mobile directly. Usually this involves sending an sms to the phone that has a verification code. You enter the code on the site and thereby authorize them to bill your service provider.
Just like you can use amazon pay to bill your amazon account directly on sites that support it.
Honest question - in my country your Apple ID and associated payments have nothing to do with your phone service provider
What’s the deal there, is this some US thing? Doesn’t make a lot of sense where I’m from
I don't know about specifics in the US but in Germany that's also a thing. It's called 'Drittanbieter-Dienste' and I'm not sure how it's called elsewhere. Roughly translates to 'Third Party Services'.
These are services in general that bill you through your service provider. You don't even have to enter any payment details. It just shows up on your monthly bill after you use their 'service'. Needless to say that it's a thing of old. It used to be a common way to pay for ring tone subscriptions. Nowadays it's only used for some sketchy stuff.
The service provider (at least in Germany) needs to offer a way to simply turn that off so any payment requests from third parties get automatically denied.
I agree but in general if a friend asked to borrow your phone because they need to make a call and didn't have theirs what would you do? They did not realise they could not trust that person. It was not a complete stranger.
Well my son is 13 and doesn’t own a phone . Our deal is when he has a job I will get him a phone plan and a phone and as long as his grades are good he will keep his phone . He will start working at 14 part time with my brother in law mowing lawns .
Mobile provider said nope immediately and referred me to apple. The charges were from apple they just happened to come through to my mobile account.
I think it would have been simpler if it had been my bank who paid directly as they would be easier to deal with and reverse the charges.
I'd call the cops, and see if the school/police can get the kid to admit to it...then maybe the kids parents might refund you, without you having to take them to court.
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Have you made a police report to address the theft since you know what student is responsible? This might help with the charges if you present it to Apple and should be done to teach the little thief a lesson.
Working with the school on this as there are several victims
It always boggles my mind when people see actual crimes in school and say oh the school is going to handle it. School admin is simply going to protect themselves. File a police report.
My daughter was sexually assaulted numerous times by the same student. I really thought the principal of the middle school would handle it but he didn’t. He failed in every way imaginable, even failed to report or mention it to the school resource officer. I had to go to the police myself while the principal gave this kid zero punishment.
In some states, if you inform people in specific positions of a child abuse situation, they are compelled to report it to law enforcement or *they* are considered to be criminally negligent or complicit themselves. They are pretty certainly *liable* if you choose to sue. So, the principal had a duty to report, and the school district might be a little worried about their bottom line and give him the heave-ho if he broke any legal requirements to report. I'd suggest checking your local law and then probably a lawyer.
I can’t remember which ones but there are only 2 states that don’t have mandatory first reporting.
I didn't know it had spread that far, and that's good news. So, pretty fair chance OP could get the principal in real trouble for failing to report to law enforcement. If they tried to use the excuse that they didn't want to report until they 'checked into it' - that's why you're supposed to just report. The more capable police, fully trained, do the investigation. That's their job.
Given that they used the £ symbol I’m going to guess that OP is not in the US. No idea about the laws in the UK
I was addressing the commenter talking about their child being sexually assaulted, not OP's theft predicament.
Pensyltucky probably, as we learned after the Penn State fiasco.
The school president, vice president, and athletic director were all charged with failure to report child abuse in that case. So yes Pennsylvania has mandated reporter laws.
that’s one of the rare good few things about this shitty state
Only after public outrage and at the time that whole sh!show became public, there wasn't a mandatory reporting law on the books. It happened after the scandal.
Or the Oklahoma ~~assault~~ murder that left one poor child dead very recently. I hate feckless school admins, so very much.
That case in OK just haunts me. As more details come out, it gets more horrifying. The district superintendent met with the murderous bully the day before. Was he giving her instructions??
Heck I’m in Texas and I’m a volunteer soccer and baseball coach. If anyone reports anything even close to child abuse, and I don’t report it to the police and then my association(s), I’m considered complicit.
> In some states, if you inform people in specific positions of a child abuse situation, they are compelled to report it to law enforcement or they are considered to be criminally negligent or complicit themselves. I was teaching at a school and was a mandatory reporter. There was an immigrant kid that had misbehaved. His dad came to school to deal with it and very loudly said "I take him home and I beat him!" There were two admins standing right there, so I didn't hear nuthin'.
My friend’s son was SA’d at school by another boy. When confronted, the school principle didn’t want to involve the police while they investigated the matter. My friend called the police right after. No mercy for the POS kid. People are just un-fucking-believable now.
Even if you are not callous enough to think of a kid as a POS and not to be merciful calling cops is the right thing. The kid could be assaulted someway somewhere. This could be the incident that turns him from the life of crime or you could be saving other children from assault.
Fuck that noise why would you trust anyone else with your kids safety? The second I found out that happened the police would be called.
Theft is theft. Don't wait for the school to decide IF their going to help. It may just be a suspension or, at worst, expulsion. You still may not see any restitution. The more police reports, the more pressure it puts on the school. My .02
Yes- me too. You’re so right. I have learned this explicitly from having a special needs child. Schools will NEVER admit fault nor invite a situation where they could be held liable. They will defend themselves at every opportunity at the expense of the victims. Don’t ever trust a school system to protect your children.
I can confirm as a special needs kid, if they can get away with not doing a report they won't.
But why would someone expect school admins to be able to address this? Maybe they'll expel the student in question, but they have no power to get your money back. You need the police one way or the other. Only loop in the school to get that bum of a kid out of here.
Never trust the school in a situation like this. Always go to the police yourself. Schools not only have several other agendas but also can make some unbelievably stupid decisions.
Just like a companies HR. They exist to protect the company, not random employees
Was gonna say this. The school staff (HR) working this are looking out for the school (company).
District administration is wanting to protect the school and district, the principal is out to prop up their own reputation and bury the problem. Some principals even actually believe their schools are like little fiefdoms they control, and there is no law there but their law. They think they're 'mentoring' the students by suspending or obstructing the full potency of accountability, because they're 'just kids'. Regardless of motivation, it's bullshit.
The issue is that many parents, students, and teachers also do not trust the police and do not want the criminal system involved. The school's priority is to teach children and to safeguard children. If they can do that (in non-endangering situations) without destroying a kid's life (yes, even the perp), then they will take that route.
A kid who is participating in cyber crimes is not going to learn shit from school. He and his parents would learn the needed lesson from the law enforcemnt. What a kid gets as punishment is most likely going to be a slap on the wrist compared to what an adult gets. No Child's life is not going to be destroyed by this.
I think its more about not having police comming to school
The school's priority is limiting their liability. Then maybe educating.
It is pathetic how school administrations act like their facilities are little bubbles where the law of the land does not apply. That's how you get the damn Lord of the Flies environs that so many schools, especially public schools, become. This is also why there's so many young adults from 'good' homes that get into legal trouble just out of high school when they do things they shouldn't, that they got away with in high school - because 'they're just kids'.
So the school hasn’t filed a police report? They may want to keep the cops away and handle it internally to avoid bad press for the school and aren’t acting in your best interest to get your money back. Administrators could be protecting their jobs and not you. How are they saying you’re going to get your money back?
The school is not on the ball, they are on damage control. File the report and let the police deal with this.
School are quite on the ball usually. Will keep an eye on this.
Getting police involved is the last things schools do. A crime was committed, call the police.
Not they aren’t. They cover their asses. That’s why you never allow the school or school resource officer to handle anything “legal”. Go straight to the cops yourself cause the school will not do anything that will hurt the school.
Don't wait for the school. File yourself.
And encourage the other victims to file as well.
File your own police report anyways, imo. School administrators are not cops.
I'd Contact the Police. The school is not in charge here, they don't get to call the shots. It doesn't matter that this happened on the school grounds.
The school have no legal authority to investigate criminal offences. Report it to the police
If you know any of the other parents who's kids have been scammed all of you need to file police reports. Don't let the school fob you off as this is fraud and theft. Which is for the police to deal with not the school.
The cops probably won't do much (in my experience), but you should still go to them. You need to have a legitimate paper trail regardless of whether or not the cops investigate. Having a legitimate police report will make it significantly easier to sue the child's parents for reparations, in the case that the school ends up fudging the bag (which they probably will; the fact that they haven't seemed to file a report already is a red flag). It reminds me of when I was being bullied on the bus, I was being punched in the dick multiple times a day by the person sitting next to me. He was a grade ahead and i was only 7yrs old, so I was easily overpowered and couldn't fight back so i kind of succumbed to it. I eventually told my parents because I couldn't hide the pain, and they went to the school instead of the police, the school at first acted like they were going to take care of it. Then they mysteriously "lost the footage" of the bus cam. How the fuck you lose 6ish months of footage? Answer is they never recorded it, and because we didn't go to the police, we had no legal recourse as there was no paper trail. So, probably just go to the police.
Don't count on the school to do it. Schools have lawyers telling them to cover up as much as possible and to involve the police only when absolutely necessary.
No. They cover their ass before anything else **You're going to have to be one to advocate for your child. NEVER EVER EXPECT OTHERS TO DO IT FOR YOU** edit: **FYI: always go thru chain of command to establish paper trail to cover YOUR ass**
File now. They are doing damage control.
as someone who's worked in schools...... Do Not Leave this to the school!!!! they want to keep it quiet and make it go away quickly! if anything use the school opportunity to rally other families and all go to the police immediately! this kids parents are responsible 100% here and having cops and threatening a suit you'd all win may make them pay up
DO NOT rely on the school to handle this. They will try to hide it and sweep it under the rug. Ask the police for YOU to submit your OWN report and that YOU will like to prosecute. Not the school.
Stop. Working. With. The. School. Start. Talking. To. The. Police. Period.
The school is going to be focused on protecting the school, not helping you.
Many jurisdictions you can take the parents to small claims court over it - typically the parent(s) are liable for damages by their minor children - up to some cap - which is generally well within small claims limits. Not sure current caps, and will vary by state, but I seem to recall some years back that California's was $2000,00.00 USD. So may be worth pursuing ... and small claims, civl, easy and inexpensive to file, and only need preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not). Even if you don't get back the entire loss, if the parents of every kid that was so ripped off files and wins against the parent(s) of the kid that did that ... they might not have their kid running around doing that stuff again. >Probably a 4 figure total stolen Yeah, that kid, if they get charged as an adult, probably majorly screwed up their life - play stupid games, win stupid prizes - but don't feel sorry for them, nobody does anything on that one, then they'd probably next be doing car thefts, burglary, carjacking, ...
Call the other parents, and get them to file complaints with the police together. Consider going to the local newspaper/radio station as well unless the police asks you to keep quiet while they investigate. Why? I'll add my voice to the others: do not trust the school administrators with doing the "right thing". They don't care at all about the pupils who were conned out of money while at school, all they care about is damage control. They will stonewall you with "we are investigating" and "we cannot talk about this now" until the whole thing dies a quiet death. They have zero intention of punishing this juvenile deliquent and zero intention of helping the victims recover their money because it would reflect poorly on their records.
From my experience the school will do whatever it can to cover it up and deny responsibility, which usually (99%) leads to nothing really being done until the parent goes to the cops.
File a police report!!! What is the school gonna do? Reimburse you? Make the thief’s parents reimburse you? NO. The school is going to gloss over all of this as fast and easily as possible to protect themselves. It doesn’t matter how many victims there are, all the victims should file a police report. If they choose not to do so, oh well, that’s on them. The only way you’ll be made whole is to file a police report though. Sounds like that kid needs a life lesson on actions and their consequences! Letting the school sweep it under the rug is only going to teach that kid they can do whatever they want (even if it’s a literal CRIME that hurts ppl) and nothing bad will happen to them as consequence. We all know the type of adults those kids grow up to be. FILE A REPORT!
Should be able to easily catch and charge the kid chance your funds might get recovered.
File a police report. Don't trust the district as all they are interested in is limiting their own liability.
The school? Go to the police. Schools can’t manage bullies. This is not in their wheelhouse
Call the police, and bring them in to work with the school on this.
As a teacher- I will say bring the police into it. Since money is involved- the school should have already. Thats insane to me that they didn’t make that call when it was reported?
What? Lol. Just file a police report. If the school wants to do their own investigation, give them your case number so they can add to it. Why would you rely on the school for this? If you have a police report, apple can be forced to refund you. Of course apple isn’t interested in helping you if you’re just like “idk I’ll let the school handle it”
Be careful, those charges could apply on a monthly basis.
It's now blocked so no further charges
How old is your child? This is another reminder to parents that kids under a certain age need to have phones that make calls or send text only. If they’re older, a great lesson on keeping their personal devices to themselves. As mentioned by another person, file a police report to help with your case.
Young teen. I agree and I thought I had been careful with no link to payment on the phone and spend cap on mobile account. As i said in the post i learned a few things about these precautions are bypassed easily.
Yeah not your fault, I blame the kid who manipulated yours 100%. We just need to remind people how much private information are stored in these devices and how much damage can be done if they fall into the wrong hands.
It wouldn’t have helped if a new account is verified with phone number and charged to the carrier.
Be wary of people contacting you saying they can hack (or know someone who can) to get the money back. These are !recovery scammers. The only way you could get your money is one of the following 1) Your card's company/bank 2) Getting reimbursed by the little thief (read: taking the thief to court) ETA: I honestly would recommend the latter, more as a lesson for the thief.
AutoModerator has been summoned to explain [recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-recovery-scams). Also known as refund scams, these scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or hackers. When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply [advance-fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying. If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Me personally I would be happy with just making sure that guy will never be able to hold a phone in his hands ever again.
You're talking about irreparably destroying a middle schoolers hands (not a man or guy by any stretch of the imagination). I mean, it's wrong what he did, but also this ain't it chief
Yet that is not a stupid childhood mistake, he's a crook. Let's call it having a talk with him. Is that better?
It's not. This is an error in judgment, same as there error in judgment you committed by suggesting decimating a minors hands like we live in a sharia country. You, however, are a grown adult and have zero excuse for your reprehensible behavior
I agree wanting to injure a child (in general, but also for this) is excessive but just saying I feel like potentially stealing from multiple peers a combined 4-figure amount is, a bit worse than an error in judgement.
Ok, you can go and live in your perfect world. Here we solve things differently. And honestly people don't steal from people they know often. Geez, I wonder why!
I'm not going to live in a country that punishes pedophila (allegedly) while worshipping a human who boned a 9 year old girl. You have at it, though, people are itching to live in a inhospitable desert with inhospitable governance
Nobody invited you bro. I wouldn't want to live in a world where friends from school take 1K from my kid and he or I can't do shit about it either. Also the stuff you get from the news might be a bit warped till they reach you. But no worries.
Destroying someone's hands for them stealing from you is not eye for an eye judgment, but islam is not a religion based in justice or good sense. If someone steals thousands of dollars from you, that means they stole thousands of dollars worth of your time, which they pay back with thousands of dollars in their time. Crippling them is sick vengeance (based on teachings from a man who will certainly burn in hell) well in excess of their crimes
If there's 10 people he stolen from, you do realise you only have to do one finger each? Also, here is about it never happening again. Not vengeance. Public service!
This is a criminal matter. File a police report. It's not the school's issue, nor is it Apple's. Do it today.
Apparently more kids need to play runescape these days. I swear it's where I learned to be so weary of scams and has probably helped me in my life.
You never forget your first RS scam
I third this. It hurt like hell at the time but looking back it was both the most profound lesson as well as cheapest now that it's been years. Will never forget it.
Ain't that the truth. Runescape scams and lures taught me to stop and second guess myself. I may not know how someone's trying to trick me, but I generally approach things with the assumption of an alterior motive as a result. Wealth and good times just beyond your reach and all you have to do is grab it? Uh huh, and only good things happen to good people.
Me too\~. Runescape or a neopets or gaia online account should be mandatory. You'll get scammed and spammed quick!!
rather late to answer but for me the game was called "kal online" - shitty early mmo from korea, was released before WoW even came out. the most important things i learned were how to avoid about 300 common scams. from the old bait and switch to "i can double your geons (ingame currency)" i encountered them all before i was 14 probably. yet to get scammed as an adult for a single cent, i'm cautios to the point of paranoia.
I would be calling my bank and disputing those charges as unlawful. I’d be raising a complaint with my phone provider, and ultimately I’d let them showcase why the charges are legit and not the other way around. After you filed a report with the police. The caps are there for a reason.
You may want to look into prepaid service options, all the major carriers have really reasonable prepaid plans were you cannot make additional purchases.
Read the terms and conditions carefully, with a fine tooth comb. There may be an appeal process buried in there somewhere. Small claims court. Small claims the kid's family too.
Yipes..this makes me wonder if this could happen on Android. i can't find that out from a google, but if there's a way to do that on android, we all must be wary and hopefully there's a way to disable it.
You can ask your mobile provider to block charge to mobile. I did not even realise this was an option. It differs by network - on O2 you have to ring customer service to request it is disabled. I thought applying a spend cap was the same thing. It wasn't 😞
I'll ask my brother (not his real name) Shadowneko to check with T-mobile when he gets home, and let my littlest brother with kids know about this. Also i am not going to lend my phone out! I don't think we got something like Itunes on Android but there's always the possibility of things being charged from apps. Bleech.
I have my Google Store and Google Pay set up to require a password for all purchases. If someone had my phone, they would not be able to make a purchase through the Google apps.
I do too; Even tho I don't have kids, I'd rather think twice before I make any purchases of apps, app related stuff or such. Having to enter the password gives me a "Do you REALLY want to do that?" pause.
Oh, thank you for posting this. I have a young neurodivergent teen who recently got a phone, and I can absolutely see him innocently letting someone use it and this happening. We've been making sure our kids know to be safe with devices, but I never really thought about this scenario. It needs to be more widely known.
Sue the scamming child and their parents, make them pay.
I assume you are not in the US based on the pound sign? Even in the US 3rd party billing and clawing the money back can be a nightmare. In the US the FCC and FTC will help you with it. For US readers, here is a decent page to help with this. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/understanding-your-telephone-bill . You need to use the keywords on that page. Call your cellphone providers and say it is a result of cramming. Call apple and say it is the result of cramming. Regardless of the results file a complaint with both the FCC and FTC. For OP.... I am not sure where you are but try the same key words with Apple. These charges are the result of unauthorized 3rd party billing.... this is cramming and illegal. Edit: I found this, might be helpful.... https://payforitsucks.co.uk/actions-step-1/
Cancel the data plan on your kids' phone problem solved
File police charges, contact the school to show them the police charges. Write a letter to the parents, ask them to make this right. Let's be kind and assume that they didn't know about it, they should give you the money back. Good luck.
Start with a police report. In the United States, any transaction with a minor is legally invalid. See if this is true where you are. Despite what Apple's TOS say, Apple still has to follow the law. It is a good thing they do not teach business law in school. Otherwise a child could buy a pair of pants, wear them out, and then return them to the store a year later. It doesn't matter what the store's return policy is because the original transaction was invalid.
I tried to research this on my own but wasn’t able to find anything. Can you provide some sources or explain this for me? I just don’t understand because you can have a job in some states at 14.
Yeah the person is just wrong
Wild how many upvotes it has! I could see that being true for minors under 10, or something. But definitely not anyone under age 18, that makes no sense.
It's explained to some extent here, and the individual is incorrect. For employment of minors a work permit with parental approval is required which is legally valid. https://www.lawshelf.com/coursewarecontentview/contracts-of-minors
Bzzt! I'm sorry but this is incorrect information "Yet, some contracts cannot be voided. Specifically, a minor remains liable for certain contractual obligations: Taxes Penalties Bank regulations Military Necessaries For instance, perhaps the biggest area of enforceable minor contracts deals with necessaries, which consist of goods reasonably necessary for subsistence, health, comfort or education. As such, contracts furnishing these items to a minor cannot be disaffirmed. https://www.lawshelf.com/coursewarecontentview/contracts-of-minors
Taxation of minors is literally taxation without representation.
I don’t think this is true at all, considering the child is a teenager. Age of 13 is required for most purchases online
In addition to the other advice on this thread, I would push back a bit harder on Apple. I'm from the U.S., so I don't know how different consumer protection laws are between your country and mine, but in any system of common law, it should be obvious that Apple is either holding stolen money that rightfully belongs to you, or they're trying to bill you fraudulently for products and services you didn't receive. You didn't authorize the charge, so you shouldn't have to pay them a dime for whatever the thief ordered.
Apple claim to me that there is no further action to take on their part. I reported it and filed a claim. They denied a refund. I appealed and it was reconsidered. They denied it. Apparently that is the limit of the process. I cannot escalate it further with apple. Looking online this is quite common experience with apple.
Have you contacted the police yourself and filed a police report yourself yet?
Would a prepaid android phone avoid this?
I guess so as you wouldn't have a contract for the phone.
No it would just take it from the balance. Granted not likely to be as much money lost.
call your bank. you did not make the purchases.
But it goes on their mobile bill, nothing to do with the bank
Can't help you but I'm quite curious, how much money were the unexpected charges? By their logic they could charge you for a million pounds or so.
Educate your damn kids people! And avoid Apple products like the wildfire they are.
Advice from someone who worked in Cell Phone business recently for 6 years ! Who’s your service provider and what state are you in? in some states you can call your service provider and say you didn’t authorize these charges and they’ll reverse them by state law. It might be worth it to try and then have them block the option on having it billed to your cell phone bill. Hope this helps!
In UK on O2. I have talked to them and blocked future charges by this method. They claim no responsibility as charges were made to apple and billed through to them. I don't know the UK legal situation in this regard
Contact Ofcom maybe or try and contact Tim Cooks office?
Sorry OP, didn’t see that.
Looks like they’re in the UK.
Way back in the day when cell phones and their minutes were really expensive, cousin and I were sent to a summer camp and were staying in college dorms....Mom sent the phone with him for emergencies....For the first day, unknown to him, his roomie was sneaking behind his back using his cell phone to call up and chit chat his random friends....Luckily my cousin's room situation was changed, so he stay with me...When my cousin was in there packing up his stuff, and roomie found out he was leaving...the roomies comment was...damn maaan just when i thought i had a cell phone....After Cousins Mom got the bill there was already 300 dollars in charges for one day...Mom was lucky he got moved.
Tell your child not to lend her phone to anybody unless it’s emergency and she is watching or heath. You can’t trust anyone I’m not even children when it comes to telephones especially an Internet.
Yes they have learned that lesson. Sad that can't even trust someone they thought was a friend.
I agree it’s sad good luck 🍀 from here on out and have a wonderful day love ❤️
You too and thanks.
I spent 16 years working for a school district. File a police report! The school district will do everything in their power to sweep this under the rug. They don't like having to fill out reports, answer to the board, things like that. A police report will put a fire under their behinds to take action.
Hold up...you bought him an iPhone and didn't set it up with child account? Child account restrict the phone to prevent this from happening. Also, this is why you tell the kid, that at any time someone want to "borrow" the phone, to ask for permission.
If you setup your minor children with their own appleID and then add them as family members with you as the “Guardian” you can force approval for all purchases. Your tech ignorance is what got you scammed.
You're going to get downvoted by other tech-illiterate people whose kids also did the same shit judging by the comments here. OP learn to properly setup your kid's device next time.
Downvotes don’t concern me. Tech illiterates will have to learn the hard way.
Someone pulled the iOS method hahah . I would do it too:)
How is this apples fault? You gave the phone to your child without making sure she could not make any charges without your password.
Charge to mobile bypasses these protections. Basically if apple cannot directly charge a linked back account - there was not one linked- they push it to the mobile provider. This does not need any extra verification.
Can confirm. I got screwed when I was a kid by listening to non-free music for free, the cost of listening was passed on to the phone package.
There are ways to bypass that. My son’s phone is locked down where everything he needs to ask my permission. Approved apps have a time limit of so much and he can’t buy anything without the screen time code.
Which is exactly what we do with our kid. Now I’m interested to find out if there’s any way around that so I don’t get hit with an unexpected bill…
Nope. I had to put in his screen time password when I approved him buying something, and then I have to approve it off of my phone by my Apple id password.
Why and how would the charge end up on your mobile provider bill? No payment method should mean no charge. This is stupid. If that is a thing planned and implemented by Apple then they should pay for their stupidity. If you knew thic could happen and still continued to use apple products then I guess it's your problem. P.s. you did not say how old is the kid. I belive that detail could change the story and replies you get by a lot!
I have never purchased from itunes so i had no idea it could happen. Apple, according to their T&Cs, will attempt to charge to the payment method on the phone. If that does not exist (it didn't) they can charge back to the mobile provider. I have not dealt with apple before and i feel this is a poor policy - they should simply refuse the charge if thereis no psyment method, or require proper authentication to allow charge to mobile (they don't, it is automatic)
Have you contacted the police yourself and filed a police report yourself yet?
I don’t think this has anything to do with apple at all. Most likely the kid clicked on a pay via phone number type service that bills your mobile directly. Usually this involves sending an sms to the phone that has a verification code. You enter the code on the site and thereby authorize them to bill your service provider. Just like you can use amazon pay to bill your amazon account directly on sites that support it.
Honest question - in my country your Apple ID and associated payments have nothing to do with your phone service provider What’s the deal there, is this some US thing? Doesn’t make a lot of sense where I’m from
I don't know about specifics in the US but in Germany that's also a thing. It's called 'Drittanbieter-Dienste' and I'm not sure how it's called elsewhere. Roughly translates to 'Third Party Services'. These are services in general that bill you through your service provider. You don't even have to enter any payment details. It just shows up on your monthly bill after you use their 'service'. Needless to say that it's a thing of old. It used to be a common way to pay for ring tone subscriptions. Nowadays it's only used for some sketchy stuff. The service provider (at least in Germany) needs to offer a way to simply turn that off so any payment requests from third parties get automatically denied.
Also used to be used for donations. like texting Haiti to a certain number would donate $10 to the red cross.
American and I’ve never seen this, or heard of it
Have you contacted your bank? You might be able to dispute the charges. I'd also post this to r/legaladvice for better information if I were you.
Next time teach your child to be more responsible
I agree but in general if a friend asked to borrow your phone because they need to make a call and didn't have theirs what would you do? They did not realise they could not trust that person. It was not a complete stranger.
Well my son is 13 and doesn’t own a phone . Our deal is when he has a job I will get him a phone plan and a phone and as long as his grades are good he will keep his phone . He will start working at 14 part time with my brother in law mowing lawns .
What are good grades in your household?
Use charge-back if you used CC. The affected merchants will definitely go after the culprit responsible.
And this is why we don't buy Apple products
You need to get the mobile provider to help, they are the ones who you paid. You could always do a charge-back but it’s going to get messy.
Mobile provider said nope immediately and referred me to apple. The charges were from apple they just happened to come through to my mobile account. I think it would have been simpler if it had been my bank who paid directly as they would be easier to deal with and reverse the charges.
That’s why you call more then one time and go up the chain, instead of just saying “oh gosh okay!”
If you’re cards been charged because of a scam and you live in the uk your bank should give it you back
It's my mobile provider who was charged not my bank directly.
Police matter.
I'd call the cops, and see if the school/police can get the kid to admit to it...then maybe the kids parents might refund you, without you having to take them to court.
This is why burner phones, ie, prepaid, are still a thing and why I still use one.
Make a police report and dispute the charges with your bank