stupid is as stupid does china parents
A teenage girl found her mom's debit card and spent $64,000 on mobile games, wiping out her family's life savings
- A teenage girl in China spent her family's life savings on mobile-game transactions.
- She spent some $64,000 from January to May through her mother's debit card, per Elephant News.
- She told the outlet that she deleted the chat and transaction records to hide them from her mother.
A 13-year-old girl in China spent around $64,000 of her parents' money on mobile games this year, wiping out their savings account without their knowledge.
Gong Yiwang learned about the spending spree in late May after receiving a call from a teacher at her daughter's boarding school, who worried the child was addicted to pay-to-play games, according to Elephant News, a regional TV channel in the Henan province.
When Gong checked her bank account, she realized it was left with a bank balance of only seven cents.
She later discovered that from January to May, her daughter had spent around $16,800 buying game accounts and almost $30,000 on in-game purchases, per Elephant News. The girl also transferred money to at least 10 classmates who wanted to buy game products for themselves, bringing the total cost of the child's monthslong binge to around $64,000.
"I never thought a 13-year-old girl could do this," Gong told Elephant News. "I'm in a daze; my head feels like it's going to explode."
Weeping as she spoke, Gong's daughter told Elephant News that she had linked her mother's debit card to her mobile phone but didn't know where the money came from or how much she was spending.
She said that she remembered her mother telling her the account's password from a previous occasion when she asked to buy something else.
She said her school friends noticed her newfound spending power and pestered her for money.