A nine-year-old boy from Australia accidentally charged A$118,000 (about US$79,000) to his father's corporate credit card to pay for advertising campaigns for his own Roblox and YouTube channels, reports infohub.kz.
According to The Register, the child found the card linked to his father's company account and attached it to his own account to purchase ads. The young blogger's goal was to attract new subscribers and viewers to his gaming content.
The father of the aspiring blogger noticed the huge charges only after receiving a notification from his company's accounting department and from the bank. In a short period, automated ad placement systems had charged a large sum because the card had a high limit for personal and work expenses. The man immediately contacted representatives of the advertising platforms and banking services to explain the situation and try to recover the mistakenly spent funds.
The incident sparked widespread discussion about the safety of linking bank cards to children's accounts and the lack of effective age checks when setting up ad accounts. Cybersecurity experts once again urged parents to closely monitor the security of payment data and enable two-factor authentication for any transactions to avoid accidental spending by children.