After receiving thirteen email notifications, confirming various Pokemon products had been ordered to their account – around two-hundred and fifty dollar’s worth in total – Ashlynd’s parents thought that their account had been hacked, before the child came clean about her activities. “No, Mommy, I was shopping,” Ashlynd told her mom. “But don’t worry — everything that I ordered is coming straight to the house.”
It certainly could have gone worse for all parties involved, and the young six-year-old certainly got what she wanted for Christmas this year, though the element of surprise was somewhat removed from the equation. The Howells are sure to be more careful in the future, especially since Ashlynd could use her newfound skills to validate the purchase of Pokemon GO’s new Holiday Boxes that can be bought as an in-app purchase now.
Stealing a parent’s thumbprint could also help the young gamer to purchase Nintendo’s latest mobile game, Super Mario Run, which has recently fallen from its place at the top of the “highest grossing” section of the App Store. The game may have recieved over 40 million downloads to iOS devices but this doesn’t seem to be enough to get players to fork out $10 for the title, now that the hype has died down.
It seems that, as ever, smartphones and kids are a dangerous mix, especially these days where micro-transactions are more than commonplace in many apps available to download, without the need for a password input. Parents will just have to be even more careful, now that we live in a world where even not even a finger-print scanner can protect your wallet.
