Got an iPad and kids? Change the settings!

[Marcus Tettmar]

I thought that whenever I wanted to buy anything on my iPad I was asked for the password.

Today after a text message from Barclay's fraud department followed by three calls to their fraud and dispute management departments and then a phone call to Apple I learn that actually, by default, once you've entered your password access is granted for 15 minutes, and within a 15 minute window today my son managed to rack up £321 of in-app purchases for a vast quantity of virtual loot.

Kudos to Apple they have refunded it and I now know where the option is to require a password for _every_ purchase and not stay active for 15 minutes.

You want to go to:

Settings -> General -> Restrictions.

In there is an option to require the password immediately. You can also turn off in-app purchases. By default once you've entered your password you can make any kind of purchase within 15 mins.

Since when I use my iPad I don't buy stuff more than once in 15 mins I had no cause to know this. I do now.

My kids showed me the game. It was Subway Surfers. And it is quite devious. To a kid it's not obvious they are getting stuff for real money. They though they were getting stuff for points they'd earned.

My fault perhaps, but I'd entered the password to let them download a free game I had vetted and I did NOT know that they would then be able to spend money for 15 minutes.

[Dorian (MJT support)]

I'd imagine a lot of us can feel your pain there.

I told my wife about this, and she said Android is even worse - apparently the Android window is 30 minutes.

If it's on a phone instead of a tablet, it gets even more dangerous, because there's an option to add the charge to the phone bill instead of paying by credit card.