Son has spent money through paypal without my permission...

[Arashima]

My 13 year old son, who has Aspergers (a reason not an excuse) has bought facebook credits using my paypal account.  I bought him some gold bars for a game on facebook, not knowing that my paypal details stay on there so you can just use it again and again without having to put a password in.  He has spent almost £250 on credits, and has used most of them already.  Is there any way I can get this money back?  I can't afford to lose £250 and I find it incredible that this can happen on a child's facebook account (maybe I need to take that one up with facebook itself).  Please, tell me there is something I can do about this...

[KAH]

Just wondering if you have had any luck getting your money back. I have just had the same thing happen to me, in this case it was my 4 year old son, I'm not entirely certain how he done it, but have found how easy it is to do. He somehow managed to purchase 650 farm cash on Farmville on Facebook, which then charged $115 dollars which worked out at over £70 to my paypal account, whilst I left the room. On checking and from what I have read up on, because I had used it before to buy a small amount, less than £1 worth in the past it had saved my paypal details including passwords, so it was a simple case of clicking on a few things which brings a pop up screen asking if you wish to purchase the farm cash with the 650 one highlighted as a default option at $115, then at the bottom there's a default button for continue, and then this brings up one more pop up window that tells you that you will pay using paypal, when I checked it just again had the default to continue with the purchase or to press another button to cancel... so as these were highlighted as the default option I'm sure by just pressing a return key would do the same thing. I think it's disgusting that it can be done so easily. I have now cancelled my paypal details from Facebook, so I'm hoping that it won't happen again, but obviously I can't afford to loose over £70 and would never use that kind of money on a computer type game... I don't want the Farm Cash so I want them to remove them from my account and re-imburse me with the money... I have filled in a form with Facebook for an unauthorised purchase and explained what happened, but I've also read of others that have had the same experience and not been able to get their money back. I've also filed an investigation with Paypal, so I hope that they can resolve it... obviously ideally I'd like to get my money back, but as well as that I hope that Paypal are able to make it compulsory for a password or some kind of security measures to be used every single time a transaction is made to that account, not just the once and then the details are saved. I use Paypal because I believe it to be safer than giving my debit card details out over the internet., but it's not very safe if a 4 year old or any child is able to spend your money without your authorisation, and in the case of my son he really doesn't understand about it being real money as such, even when yesterday I was trying to explain to him what he'd done.

[Arashima]

Hi, sorry I kept meaning to come back and reply to you, but something always distracted me.

Yes, I got the money back.

You have to report it to facebook as an unauthorised use of your paypal account, and tell them which transaction (they put up a list of recent transactions) it covers.  You will need the transaction ID from your paypal email.  They then refund, but they will only do it once.  Any further misuse by members of your household or people known to you will not be refunded.

What annoys me is that the transaction was done on my sons account, and therefore facebook know how old he is by his date of birth.  They should not be able to, or indeed want to, keep paypal details on the account of a minor.  You'd think they'd  have more sense.

Hope that helps you anyway, and that you get your money back.

[Wovenx]

How long did it take to get your refund? My son (Autistic) just did this - 400.00. lol!