Canadian Teen Racks Up $7,600 In Microtransaction Charges

In case you haven't heard, games can cost a lot of money these days if you're not careful -- or if you give your gamer child access to a credit card with a limit in the high four digits.

That was the expensive lesson one parent in Canada learned this holiday season. According to a CBC report, Ontarian Lance Perkins received a bill for $7,625.88 on Dec. 23, all of which were attributed to his 17-year-old son's frequent and repeated microtransactions in various FIFA soccer games for an unidentified Xbox system. The son confessed to the transactions but seemed just as surprised about how much he had spent. "He thought it was a one-time fee for the game," Perkins said.

It seems unlikely that Microsoft will reverse or undo the charges, issuing a statement that says such legal transactions are the responsibility of the buyer, and that there are systems in place to help parents regulate their children's purchases. Perkins won't need to worry about those systems, however, as all gaming systems have henceforth been banned from his home.

The FIFA games Perkins' son paid for may or may not have been free-to-play, but they obviously came loaded with microtransactions of the type that are common in F2P games. In any case, it's something to keep in mind if you've got a child with access to a bank account or credit card -- even if it's "for emergencies," as Perkins had designated for his son.