Boy's Cookie Run ‘hack’ fails, mom billed for THB200,000

[realenglish1]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

You are insensitive This is a 12 your old kid. that has no idea and the app company should pay much closer attention Who in their right mind spends 200,000 in micro payments for anything on the Internet. The Phone company can in fact charge the app company back and all is not harmed That is in the initial agreement when they contract So get off you so called Moral Hi Horse

[Bluespunk]

Why do people give there kids a phone with unlimited credit? Never heard about prepay?

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Was it his phone? I thought it was his mothers.

[belg]

no early warning system or something when such amounts are being paid ?

just try as a farang to send 100.000 baht from your thai bank account to your home, without work permit ...

[marko kok prong]

Typical Thai boy,i bet she did not even tell off her little emperor for what he did.

[monkeycountry]

Obviously the mom will never pay this bill, so who will end up with the loss? AIS or the Japanese company?

[Bluespunk]

Obviously the mom will never pay this bill, so who will end up with the loss? AIS or the Japanese company?

Is there any loss if its just cookie run crap?

[RaysFan]

Its not linked to the credit card.... obviously... That is why AIS is billing them. And there is security... You are asked about 100 times if you are sure you want to make the purchase before you actually make the purchase. Line did nothing wrong, AIS did nothing wrong.... The boy did everything wrong. And hes 12 years old. Hes not 3 or 4... Dont say he didnt know what hes doing. Hes smart enough to get on youtube and look for hacks for the game. They are rightfully billing her.

[allan michaud]

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Quite amazed their credit control system did not shut it off..... Looks like AIS has a serious issue with their billing system


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Which raises the question; they have a credit control system?

[rebelplatoon]

Maybe people can now stop playing these wasteful games. Real life is so much more fun!

[h90]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

What crime? He is playing a game. No damage done.

Hacking is a crime.

TRYING to hack a children game about cookies, by a 12 year old to get some virtual extra cookies.....Common sense tells that this a very serious crime and should be punished with at least 3 kg chocolate cookies.

[doctorproc156]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

What crime? He is playing a game. No damage done.

Hacking is a crime.

This isn't hacking, that was the wrong word used by the boy. He was exploiting a glitch within a game that nets him no monetary gain in the real world, not a crime.

[Ceruhe]

Once again a Thai parent refuses to take any responsibility for her child's action. What he attempted to do was illegal and in other countries he would have been arrested and charged as a juvenile for attempting to hack into a business' system.

Hmm. It still comes down to there needing to be better controls and security mechanisms in smart phones and apps overall.

I myself play HayDay quite alot, on the occassion I accidentally happen to hit on the buttons that want me to purchase stuff, which I can then cancel without much effort. The game itself has a) a double confirm option (which I enabled) if you want to spent your ingame currency (what you already have, not want to buy), though I don't know how the purchase works, I will need to sign into my...uh, iTunes accounts or something or another forstarters, but not sure after that.

The evil lies in those beyond rip off micro transaction with little to no value, kids just want to play and not stopped by some senseless "recharge life" thing and wait around to continue on, thus looking for a bypass, aka the micro transactions or google. Google will bring you to whatever article it can find with plenty of hits, and because people on the interwebs are so freaking smart at naming their things properly, you will pretty much have a list of tipps/tricks/hacks to browse through. Often enough those "hacks" are simple game flaws which let you exploit some things (which are within the game itself and require not real "hacking") and are just falsely described.

Not saying there aren't specific people actually programming hacks and promoting those, just like for Cookie Run, but those only look dubious to us with more than a dozen years of life experience. The article fails to link to any kind of source about the "hack", so the kid might of just repeated what he read face value without thinking of it just as an exploit.

Which brings us to supervising I guess. Not sure how you see it, if I give my phone to a kid (not that I have one or do that haha), the thing just wants to be entertained and usually is quiet in the background, mind you, you ought to know what kind of games you got and if they are appriopriate, which in most cases they will be. So the alertness of the kid going bersek on the micro transaction button isn't that high, as you know what the game is about, doesn't apply to some kid though. And since you likely have better things to do than sit next to the kid watching everything it does (police state anyone?) you just go do what you gotta do.

Not the first story of it's kind, I've read some others, where charges have been dropped or the kid going into some state of depression and what have you, resulting in said adults into writing blogs etc and informing others about the lack of security of apps. This hasn't so much to do with supervising than limiting control for these "new age" smartphones and apps through regulations to some degree, which as parental control. I'd be game enough to have an option integrated into the smartphones that flat out disables all money related transaction until is has been manually enabled again, with passwords and all the fancy stuff, as in making you tab out of the game/whatever to enable it, and not just let you bypass it through ingame popup. Well, that's just for starters.

While I'm neither siding for the mom/kid or the AIS/Line, I've been looking down on smartphones (albeit knowing their uses) a long time already and been tempted to throw this pos around like no tomorrow, but realising it wouldn't make a single damn difference worldwide besides taking away my (alarm)clock it's still intact. Due to there not being very strict enforcements, companies will abuse the lack of it as long as they can, without remorse.

[UbonRatch]

Its not linked to the credit card.... obviously... That is why AIS is billing them. And there is security... You are asked about 100 times if you are sure you want to make the purchase before you actually make the purchase. Line did nothing wrong, AIS did nothing wrong.... The boy did everything wrong. And hes 12 years old. Hes not 3 or 4... Dont say he didnt know what hes doing. Hes smart enough to get on youtube and look for hacks for the game. They are rightfully billing her.

You must have been Victor Mature when you were 12 years old, playing with your folding tabs to dress dollies, and winning a 'gogger' for hitting 3 marbles.

Then again, you probably have no idea what I'm referring to, judging by your attitude that the 12 year old knew he was running up such a huge bill, after believing a youtube vid..

Today is neither yo-yos nor Tonka toys. It is all out crap by online wwws to get what they can from the unknowing.

The child is not responsible for unknowingly pursuing something he thought was free, and neither is the mother for permitting him to play.

What is wrong is all these stupid games people are marketed with, and psychologically controlled to some large degree, in the way they are designed.

I constantly receive messages on LINE to my phone, from people I know wouldn't send to me, and most of the time it is cookie run, whatever that is. I delete such, as I'm a lot older than aged 12.

Line does therefore do wrong. It encourages and supports unwanted messages, and untrue messages, from friends who do not even send them.

The LINE should stop there!

[Balance]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

I dont often agree with you but now I do. Thete should be some protections in place. This is just crazy, however if protection is available but not switched on I blame the consumer too.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

I would make a guess that they have never given a thought to a bill being too high, for whatever reason as indicated by the installment offer.

[risky11]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

AIS beef is with the boy, not the mom.

[Tchooptip]

cookie run?, She should tell them to go and jog on !

.

She could but then AIS would cut off her phone and most likely take legal action. Better the course she is following now, lots of publicity to shame AIS into doing the right thing.

Lot of publicity you bet! I've seen it already many times on the Thai TV news! The Thais I know could hardly believe it. It is making kind of a Buzz, for yes 200.000 Bahts is a good deal of money but even more so for the people who earn more or less 10,000 a month!

[Centrum]

I feel sort of relieved now. My 6 year old daughter only cost me 5,000baht on Cookie Run.

[Bpuumike]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

Agreed ... the software-company ought to have a duty, to check at some point that the person running-up such a large bill is a responsible adult, not just a child. After all, they're the ones extending credit !

What can AIS do ... cut her phone off ?

That should be the end of the matter !

Not in Thailand, here, by law, debtors go to prison

Sent from my GT-I9300T using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

No, debtors don't go to prison in Thailand.

[indothai]

AIS & LINE, you can afford to pay for this!!! Go pay for this lady.

Then, go and put a cap on all your "general" customers of 2000 baht unless they signed a waiver or request to increase the cap.

Those blaming the mother, common' don't be such a know it all !!! I'm a 42 year old working in the tech industry and have no idea what this game is all about and how they go about charging. The kid could very well be playing on the mom's phone, the only smartphone in the family probably.

sigh.... parents, it's time to play more often with your kids.

[Glock3am]

It is not AIS per se, it is the Japanese software company (Line Corp.).

It is not simply that he was on the phone too long, or anything that AIS could have foreknown. The game, like many these days, sells things in the game, things like extra lives and special abilities etc, each of these are chargeable under micro-transactions. They can add up very quickly. Line would have charged through AIS and AIS just passed the charge along.

The fault is really with people's expectations these days - game makers spend months writing a game and because of Google Play/Apple Store/Windows Phone Store/etc, can not get any money for it - people want everything for free - so the developers put in in-game purchases in to a free game - play for free, or make it better by buying. The ethos of wanting something for nothing has pushed the market into this dangerous and often annoying scenario.

One only has to peruse the comments of any of these mobile stores - games for $1.99 (that took a team of people 6 months work to make) - have people awarding one star from five with the comment - why is this not free. I am not talking about rubbish games that no one would want, but games with tens or hundreds of thousands of downloads - still half the comments are people wanting it for free. What other industry in the world spends six months hard work ( these Indie guys spend 12 hours 6 or 7 days a week getting their stuff written and tested ) and give it away for nothing?

Lets face it, if a company did that, how quickly would other vendors jump on them in court - look at Microsoft being sued over and over for giving away Internet Explorer, a simple Video Editor, Windows Media, even Paint - companies that sold these items for their livelihood were practically put out of business over night when XP was released with all those goodies.

I totally agree about rewarding the developers - people expect too much for free when these games cost time and money to produce! I'd much rather pay a few dollars up front and get a full featured ad-free game than all of these crappy free games with IAP that are becoming the norm. I have spent hundreds of dollars in the Play Store over the years on proper, full apps and would love to do so in all cases but when the only option is a free + IAP, with very few exceptions I will either not install it nor purchase IAPs if I do install it. The practice is infesting the industry both in mobile gaming and on PC/consoles. It's sad and very annoying.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Glock3am

[Porkster]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

Agreed ... the software-company ought to have a duty, to check at some point that the person running-up such a large bill is a responsible adult, not just a child. After all, they're the ones extending credit !

What can AIS do ... cut her phone off ?

That should be the end of the matter ![/quote

]It clearly states that the phone belongs to his 48 year old mother... So he was pretending to be his mother in other words...

I received a bill for 110,000 back in '06 when I was working in Brunei and the AIS tart didn't know what she was talking about or just blatantly lied to me when I asked her the cost of data roaming... "Same price Thailand, 1 baht 1 minute" she said.

They automatically cut me off when I'd spent 11 hours connected to the Internet, basically it was a voice call back to Thailand for 11 hours!!!

I wrote $h!tty emails to them and we came to an agreement that I only pay half... But still, that was £1,000 back then!

The deal I got with them now is to to cut my phone off when if it reaches 50k

Which reminds me, I gotta drop it to 20k

I blame AIS for this at the end of the day and their multi billion baht bank account should settle the bill with Line...

Edited June 23, 2014 by Porkster

[RigPig]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

You are insensitive This is a 12 your old kid. that has no idea and the app company should pay much closer attention Who in their right mind spends 200,000 in micro payments for anything on the Internet. The Phone company can in fact charge the app company back and all is not harmed That is in the initial agreement when they contract So get off you so called Moral Hi Horse

I dis agree, this was 12 year old boy who knew he should be paying and was clever enough to find a "hack" on You Tube with the intention of stealing from the software company who make the money for their efforts this way. He was clever enough to execute the hack but guess what, it didn't work and he got charged.

AIS are in the middle they got charged as per the contract they have by the software company.

Don't do the crime if you can't stand the time, actions and consequences. He may only be 12 but he knew what he was doing was wrong, if there is no consequences it will just happen again, maybe he (and hopefully his friends) will learn something from this.

If it was my kid I would have punished him and made him work to pay back the debt no matter how long it took. AIS are letting them pay it off which is good of them.

[h90]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

You are insensitive This is a 12 your old kid. that has no idea and the app company should pay much closer attention Who in their right mind spends 200,000 in micro payments for anything on the Internet. The Phone company can in fact charge the app company back and all is not harmed That is in the initial agreement when they contract So get off you so called Moral Hi Horse

I dis agree, this was 12 year old boy who knew he should be paying and was clever enough to find a "hack" on You Tube with the intention of stealing from the software company who make the money for their efforts this way. He was clever enough to execute the hack but guess what, it didn't work and he got charged.

AIS are in the middle they got charged as per the contract they have by the software company.

Don't do the crime if you can't stand the time, actions and consequences. He may only be 12 but he knew what he was doing was wrong, if there is no consequences it will just happen again, maybe he (and hopefully his friends) will learn something from this.

If it was my kid I would have punished him and made him work to pay back the debt no matter how long it took. AIS are letting them pay it off which is good of them.

stealing? stealing what digital cookies?

[RigPig]

This isn't hacking, that was the wrong word used by the boy. He was exploiting a glitch within a game that nets him no monetary gain in the real world, not a crime.

WRONG he was stealing (or trying to steal) from the software company, intellectual rights etc. They put the effort in and made a successful game why should someone steal the rewards for their efforts. He knew what he was doing.

I am sure you would feel different if it was coming out of your pocket.

Is it OK for 12 year old kids to shoplift at the local store? Same thing.....

[marko kok prong]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

You are insensitive This is a 12 your old kid. that has no idea and the app company should pay much closer attention Who in their right mind spends 200,000 in micro payments for anything on the Internet. The Phone company can in fact charge the app company back and all is not harmed That is in the initial agreement when they contract So get off you so called Moral Hi Horse

I dis agree, this was 12 year old boy who knew he should be paying and was clever enough to find a "hack" on You Tube with the intention of stealing from the software company who make the money for their efforts this way. He was clever enough to execute the hack but guess what, it didn't work and he got charged.

AIS are in the middle they got charged as per the contract they have by the software company.

Don't do the crime if you can't stand the time, actions and consequences. He may only be 12 but he knew what he was doing was wrong, if there is no consequences it will just happen again, maybe he (and hopefully his friends) will learn something from this.

If it was my kid I would have punished him and made him work to pay back the debt no matter how long it took. AIS are letting them pay it off which is good of them.

But he is a Thai boy and probably has never been told off in his life,it makes me sick the lack of discipline to the Thai boy's ,different with the girl's i note,this is why so many become indolent,irresponsible waster's,so even though he knew he was doing wrong he knew Mummy would not discipline him.

[mjef]

They should wipe the bill and put in place a system where the consumer is protected,

Fair enough the boy done the wrong thing but he's only 12 and now you've got a mother who is most likely on computer savvy and a farmer slugged with a bill which is nearly impossible for her to pay.

He is only 12?

If everyone customers came and pretend innocent, what is AIS (or DTAC or True) going to do?

Give all a free ride.

The boy knowingly tried to hack the system, which is a crime by itself.

Should he be charged for that cyber crime?

As far as I know all credit-based systems have a limit on how much you can spend. This is the first time I hear there is no limitation on a post-paid sim card. So yes, this is definitely not the customer's fault. Imagine a pickpocket steals your phone and start doing all sort of stuff possible with it, before you notice your phone is missing you're bankrupt! Then people like you probably would say: "They could have been more careful, This is not the operator's fault!"

Right? Though you probably work for AIS so forget about it! 555+

[new2here]

Hi,

I'm kind of in the middle here... I do think that there is, or should be, some onus on the carrier ti make sure only known (to the responsible party) charges are made, and that such charges can reasonably be paid.

I don't think that there is, or should be, the whole onus on the carrier..

To this end I think there is some personal responsibility in play.. Yes, the user here was/is 12, thus a minor, however if applicable law provides for a parental liability for the criminal or civil actions of a minor, then that's what it should be and the aggrieved party should be able to seek remedy under said law.

Again, I don't think it's good for anyone - carrier/game maker or consumer - to have a limitless free-for-all... But I don't think it's the carriers (or game makers) "job" to protect you from yourself (or parties you're liable for) so, for me, a compromise might be required notices when a certain amount is charged or similar.

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[Prbkk]

This has happened quite a lot in Australia. The govt and regulatory authorities stepped in and forced these manipulative sleazebags to be completely transparent about the costs of "upgrading" in the games. The owners of the games and their agents should be the ones facing prison

[UbonRatch]

It is not AIS per se, it is the Japanese software company (Line Corp.).

It is not simply that he was on the phone too long, or anything that AIS could have foreknown. The game, like many these days, sells things in the game, things like extra lives and special abilities etc, each of these are chargeable under micro-transactions. They can add up very quickly. Line would have charged through AIS and AIS just passed the charge along.

The fault is really with people's expectations these days - game makers spend months writing a game and because of Google Play/Apple Store/Windows Phone Store/etc, can not get any money for it - people want everything for free - so the developers put in in-game purchases in to a free game - play for free, or make it better by buying. The ethos of wanting something for nothing has pushed the market into this dangerous and often annoying scenario.

One only has to peruse the comments of any of these mobile stores - games for $1.99 (that took a team of people 6 months work to make) - have people awarding one star from five with the comment - why is this not free. I am not talking about rubbish games that no one would want, but games with tens or hundreds of thousands of downloads - still half the comments are people wanting it for free. What other industry in the world spends six months hard work ( these Indie guys spend 12 hours 6 or 7 days a week getting their stuff written and tested ) and give it away for nothing?

Lets face it, if a company did that, how quickly would other vendors jump on them in court - look at Microsoft being sued over and over for giving away Internet Explorer, a simple Video Editor, Windows Media, even Paint - companies that sold these items for their livelihood were practically put out of business over night when XP was released with all those goodies.

I totally agree about rewarding the developers - people expect too much for free when these games cost time and money to produce! I'd much rather pay a few dollars up front and get a full featured ad-free game than all of these crappy free games with IAP that are becoming the norm. I have spent hundreds of dollars in the Play Store over the years on proper, full apps and would love to do so in all cases but when the only option is a free + IAP, with very few exceptions I will either not install it nor purchase IAPs if I do install it. The practice is infesting the industry both in mobile gaming and on PC/consoles. It's sad and very annoying.

I disagree with all these mod-tech games. I much prefer to play with my Barbie and Ken.

Only last week they got divorced, and it was a sad day in court.

Barbie got all of Ken's accesories...

[tingtongteesood]

No sympathy from me. I see so many people here glued to screens, even whilst walking down the street they are staring at their screens then look surprised when they bump into something. Parents need to make their kids do other things and adults need to get lives that do not revolve around stupid social networking crap...