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Comment by garbagecoder | Hacker News Reader

I was stuck in a loop where my son's iCloud account had a subscription to Parallels, but it was on my credit card. He lost his password because he's 12. Even though I'm the parent on the account, it wouldn't let me cancel his purchase. But it also wouldn't let me reset his password for 6 weeks, and only a week into that period a $100 parallels subscription was going to go through.

Fortunately, American Express reversed the charge because they're cool. But Apple didn't do anything and I'm not sure how it can be that I can ever be locked out of preventing a charge to my credit card.

I just wish we could find a way to give lower-level people the ability to deal with these absurd situations. It's not just Apple, you get treated like cattle everywhere.

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Yep. It's a blatantly obvious dark pattern. It's your credit card. Your money. Yet Apple gives you no way to cancel (or even view!) a child's subscription online. Heck, they won't even tell you which child made the subscription.

One of my younger kids bought $7,200 worth of currency and content on a game on a Kindle. She did so in a single afternoon. I contacted Amazon support and the refund was issued on the spot. After they issued the refund, the only question that was asked was why I had it set to allow her to buy online. I replied that it was because she could not use one of Amazon's services with the family account without having payments enabled (I think it was music). I'm pretty sure they corrected that... but I was struck by how pro-consumer and how little hassle there was. I do not think that either the Play Store or App Store would have issued that refund so quickly.

To be fair, Apple refunded and cancelled the subscription upon request in my instance too. But first you've got to notice the problem, and then jump through the hoops.

There's no good reason I shouldn't be able to cancel an auto-recurring subscription on my own credit card from some interface.

Why do you allow your child to buy subscriptions without approval?

Does "Family Sharing" with "Require Purchase Approval" not work as described?

It's (IMO) intentionally crippled because it asks for every app install. Including free ones. Which is not only annoying, since kids play a lot of games, but also creates a time delay. For example, the child is in a special education program that requires certain apps. If he tries to install one at school and I don't approve it immediately then that's a problem.

There is no option to "ask for permission if it costs money" option. Which, let's be honest - is probably what most parents are looking for (and would be dead simple to implement).

Ah. Totally makes sense.

My “kid” is nearly 30, so we never had to deal with this.

Not only that, but it can only be managed from another apple device. If your kid has an ipad and you don't have an iphone, ipad, or mac; you can't use the child accounts.

[deleted]

Pretty sure I was responding to somebody else? But, if Family Share doesn’t let you view and mange a child’s subscriptions that you’ve approved, that is awful, no disagreement there.

My bad. Deleted.

US based? Next time tell them he's 12 and made the account himself without your permission.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_...

I could have, but I don't think I should have to massage the facts to get this fixed. I made the account. He just lost his password.

I call bullshit on this one.

Apple allows a Parent / Guardian account to reset the password of a child account. I do not have to do anything. I can just go into my iCloud settings and just reset my child’s account right away. Also, Apple does not allow you to create a child account (below 13) without having a parent account attached to it.

My guess is that you lied during account creation and created an adult account for your child and then you handed that account password and the reset mechanism to your child and he /she lost BOTH of them. In which case, Apple should still help you but I would say - you are more at fault here than Apple

My child's school forces us to create accounts the way you describe. Since kids all get ipads they need icloud accounts, but the school does not participate in the program that lets them create icloud accounts for kids. You as a parent must create the account. If you don't use apple products, I don't, you can only create an adult account. You cannot create a child account, or manage it once created, without another apple device. I went through all the steps to create an adult account, then logged out of the ipad and used the child account I created, but the account was useless without me being logged into the parent account on an apple device. You could not use the web-ui from a linux or windows device. I complained to the school and said I thought this was a violation of the laws for children under 13. They said the child doesn't own the account, I do as the parent and give them permission; so it's fine. There was no other choice to setup the devices for my children.

In order to attend the public school you have been paying for must first agree to a contract with a private company, if you refuse men with guns will put you in prison and put your child into the care of a foster family where they have a fairly high probability of being abused.

Nice kid you got there, would be a shame if something happened to them...

How the hell is this allowed?

Where would you like me to paste the screen shots?

I absolutely permitted him to buy the initial subscription. I approved it. I just wanted to cancel the renewal.

Anyway, I convinced American Express and they gave me my money back so what you think doesn't matter.

Even supposing you were right and I "lied" to let him have an adult account, that should give another purported adult access to my card without my authorization? I think you have the hierarchy of evils backwards just to say something shitty on the internet.

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