Teenager drains $85,000 of family's life savings on mobile games
A teenager in China took her gaming addiction to the next level, practically wiping out her family’s life savings on mobile games in just four months.
The 13-year-old girl’s mother, who goes by the last name Wang, found out about the US$64,000 (C$85,000) online shopping spree in late May, reported the South China Morning Post.
She received a call from a teacher at her daughter’s school who expressed worry that the kid was addicted to mobile games after noticing she spent a lot of time on her phone.
Wang then checked her bank account only to find that all that was left of their savings was seven cents.
An interview with the girl and her family on a local TV station in Henan province has gone viral on Chinese social media.
In the video, you can see Wang crying as she explains the incident.
It turns out that her daughter had linked her debit card to her cellphone, but didn’t necessarily understand where the money came from, according to the interview, translated by Insider.
The daughter told the local news outlet that she remembered her mom telling her the bank account’s password from a previous occasion.
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She said her classmates pressured her into paying for their games.
“When they asked me to pay for their games, I paid despite feeling reluctant,ā the girl explained in the video.
“If I didn’t send it to them, they would bother me all day. If I told the teacher, I was afraid that the teacher would tell my parents and that my parents would be angry,”
Wang told the outlet that her daughter deleted chat and transaction records to hide the payments from them.
Gaming addiction among youth in China is so bad that the country has implemented internet restrictions on teens and kids.
It’s an age-old trend among teens across the globe.
In March, a Canadian mother sued the creators of Fortnite for its “addictive design,” claiming that her son’s mental and physical health depleted after downloading the game.
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