Anyone on Facebook knows about FarmVille. That’s that annoying game that spams status updates obnoxiously every time some user gets a new pig or grows a bean sprout or whatever people do in the game. I’ve never played it, but I know a lot of people that do play it, and it’s one of the reasons why I stopped using Facebook. I got sick of all the invitations to play it, all the “free gifts” designed to make me sign up, and all the idiocy surrounding the game. As it turns out, it’s good that I never started playing, because it gets expensive. One unnamed 12-year-old boy spent £900 on FarmVille!
Not only did the anonymous British tween empty his £288 savings account, then stole his mother’s credit card and charged an additional £625. That’s $1367 in American money! That’s a lot of money that the boy’s mother won’t be getting back. FarmVille makers Zynga, Facebook, and credit card company HSBC can’t, or won’t, give her the money back. HSBC can only write it off if she reports him to the police (which she won’t do for obvious reasons), and Zynga won’t return the cash because the boy lives in the same house as the mother. At least they suspended the boy’s account.
I know about playing addicting video games. I even know about spending money on online gaming points/tokens/whatever. But to blow $1300 on any game is just mind-boggling. This kid has to be an addict to have played FarmVille that much, and his mother should’ve watched him closer.
Tags: Facebook, online games, FarmVille, addicting games, giant game bills, £900 Farmville bill, teen spends £900 on Facebook game, teen spends 00 on FarmVille, Zynga, stolen credit card, video games, social networking
