A 9-year-old boy in Singapore spent nearly $6,000 on online game cards after secretly taking money from his family. His mother said she was heartbroken when she found out that her son had spent what amounted to three months of her salary on games.
According to Shin Min Daily News, Ms Xu, 50, who works as a stall assistant, said her Primary 3 son had become addicted to the popular online gaming platform Roblox over the past three months.
Roblox is a multiplayer game platform that allows users to create, share and play games in virtual worlds.
“He took all the money from home,” said Ms Xu.
“I noticed that the cash we kept in the drawer was getting less. When I asked him, he refused to admit it. Later, I found out he even took his sister’s $4,000 savings to buy game cards.”
According to her, the boy bought the top-up cards from a convenience store located under Block 101 Towner Road in Boon Keng, and used them to recharge his account.
“Some of the cards he even gave away to his friends. He couldn’t tell me how many. I don’t know if he was influenced or pressured by his classmates,” she said.
Ms Xu shared that both she and her husband are low-income workers, and the money that went into the game account could not be recovered.
“One night, when I checked, I saw his game account had over 230,000 points, worth more than $3,000. My monthly salary is only $2,000, and I take home $1,600. To see him spend almost three months of my salary so easily really broke my heart,” she said.
Her husband later scolded their son, but the couple are now more worried about his understanding of money and his growing addiction to online games. Ms Xu also questioned why convenience stores did not intervene when a young child made large purchases.
“These shops may be operating legally, but if they are near schools, shouldn’t there be some controls? I hope the authorities can look into this,” she said.
She also urged other parents to pay more attention to their children’s online spending,
“I don’t want more families to end up like us, watching their hard-earned money go into games.”
