Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
This is the schoolboy who spent almost all of his grandmother’s annual 2,000 GBP pension in a single week by making dozens of in-app purchases and secretly deleting her bank statements.
The 11-year-old from the county of Siyang, in East China’s Jiangsu Province, downloaded popular battle royale shooter Game for Peace on his grandma’s iPad and made some 60 transactions in seven days using her linked bank card.
His grandmother, Ms Liang, 57, was shocked when she learned some 14,399 RMB (1,640 GBP) of her 18,000 RMB (2,000 GBP) yearly government pension had vanished from her account.
Ms Liang said: “I received a message from my bank on 21st March while I was sitting on the balcony.
“I checked my bank account and noticed more than 14,000 RMB was missing.”
Ms Liang and her husband are the boy’s full-time guardians while his parents work in another city.
She questioned her grandson, who finally admitted he had been making secret in-game purchases and deleting notices from her bank so she would not find out.
Ms Liang added: “My pension is only 1,500 RMB (170 GBP) a month. This is very heartbreaking.
“I couldn’t believe my grandson would do something like this.
“I take care of him every day!”
The schoolboy explained: “I used the money to buy character skin loot boxes.
“The boxes have some pretty character skins.”
Ms Liang reached out to Apple representatives in China, but the iPad maker says it was not able to authorise App Store refunds on behalf of developers.
The game, published by Lightspeed and Quantum Studios, belongs to Chinese media and entertainment giant Tencent.
The company has asked the boy’s parents to visit a branch in person in order to request a refund, reports said.
Ms Liang said she has removed her bank details from her iPad.
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