gg2
tomshardware.com

Devastated father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft c

The gist

A 9-year-old spent $118,000 on YouTube ads for his Minecraft channel using his dad's saved company card.
The case shows how saved payment details and simple ad tools can let a child run up huge bills.

How it unfolded

  1. Sep 4, 2014The FTC announced Google would refund at least $19 million to parents billed for children's unauthorized in-app purchases on Google Play and required express consent before billing; this covered Google Play, not Google Ads.
  2. Early Sept. 2026Mighty Mike Plays had about 24,000 subscribers and 182 uploads.
  3. Four days before Dave's videoThe boy posted a video titled "NeverMyFault made a Short about my Ad?" about another creator noticing one of his promotions; it had about 70,000 views.

Sources

Read the full story in the app gg2 — free on the App Store