Ah kids today eh? they grow up so fast. One minute they are having birthday parties and playing games with their little friends, the next they are draining $20,000 out of their parents’ bank accounts to spend on Twitch subscriptions and tipping their favorite streamers.
Well, that’s certainly what happened to one parent recently who has requested to remain anonymous in order to protect her offspring from further ridicule.
The teenage Fortnite fan blasted though $20k after being given a debit card to spend on school lunches and the like. To feed his Twitch habit however he basically transferred years of the family savings to his card and frittered the lot away in some 17 days. Yes, 17 days. Yes, that is almost $1000 per day.
The mother says the money was spent on donations to Tfue, Gorb, and Ewokttv, as well as Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kurt Benkert and Miami Heat’s Meyers Leonard.
“When I saw the bank balances were almost gone, my lips started to tingle and I had to put my head down so I wouldn’t pass out,” she said. “I cried at first. I didn’t believe he could’ve done this.”
She believes she may have left her online bank account logged in but still insists her son was shocked when confronted by how much money he had wasted.
“I contacted my bank as soon as I found out and they froze all of our accounts, and his debit card was canceled,” she said. “Unless I press charges against my son, they will not help as this is considered friendly fraud.”
She has contacted Twitch and Amazon to see if they can help out but is yet to get a response from them. Meanwhile, the parent company Amazon helpfully told her to contact Twitch. Thanks guys.
She has also reached out to the streamers but has so far only heard back from the sports stars.
“I work too many hours, and have not paid close enough attention to what he was doing online,” she said. “His internet knowledge has absolutely surpassed mine… My focus now though is trying to figure out why he did it so I can make sure this is the one giant mistake he makes in his life.”
All jokes aside it is all too obvious that the young can also be drawn into addictive spending and gambling and we really do need to be in a place where companies set limits to the amount of money they can receive in situations like this, where clearly $20,000 worth of deposits suggest something out of the norm is going on.
