S'pore boy, 11, steals S$4,000 from mum to buy mobile top-up cards to feed gaming addiction

When easy payment becomes too easy even kids can do it.

Lean Jinghui | September 20, 2021, 04:46 PM

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A mother in Singapore lamented that her 11-year-old son had become obsessed with mobile games prior to his PSLE, after mixing with the wrong crowd.

He subsequently stole close to S$4,000 of her cash within three months to purchase top-up cards for his mobile games, and to treat his friends to a lavish meal.

Hooked

According to Shin Min Daily News, the mother, Linda Wang, 43, had realised something was amiss on Sep. 12 when her son suddenly stopped asking for his allowance.

Upon checking his school bag, she had discovered he had S$58 in his wallet.

Under her intense interrogation, he then admitted to taking money from her wallet to spend on his friends and to purchase top-up cards to play mobile games.

Wang told Shin Min that as her son does not have a phone, and is only allowed to play mobile games for one to two hours every day after completing his homework, she had never expected that he would steal to purchase credits for his games.

She added that she suspects he may have been influenced by his friends:

"I checked the transactions and found out that at the beginning, he reloaded credits in the tens of dollars. It slowly increased to more than S$100, and on one particular day, the amount was more than S$600".

From July to September 2021, her son reportedly spent more than S$3,000 in total on mobile games, and another S$500 on a meal with his friends.

Painful lesson

The owner of a hair salon, Wang shared that the pandemic has been tough on the family, with the combined family income slashed by up to half.

As their daily earnings are typically transferred directly to her wallet, she had not initially noticed that the money was missing.

The sum of money stolen equated to about one to two months of their household expenditure, and was an inexplicably "painful lesson".

Previously, while she had "neglected" her son as she was busy with work, Wang said she now makes sure to watch over him as he does his revisions.

"I treat this incident as an expensive lesson learnt. I hope that my experience will serve as a warning to other parents, that online gaming addiction can be devastating for a kid".

Online gaming restrictions for minors?

According to Shin Min, Wang also pointed out that online gaming restrictions for minors should be implemented, including to limit a minor's ability to make top-ups for mobile games freely.

Convenience stores should also stop selling these top-up cards to primary school students.

Wang told Shin Min reporters that after the incident, her nephew had brought her son to the convenience store to ask about the cards her son had bought.

A store employee explained that they had asked her son then if he was a victim of a scam, but he had replied that he was buying the cards for his parents.

They then did not intervene.

Wang opined that given that primary school students are still very young, the store employee should have questioned further and informed the parents upon noticing that her son was buying four S$100 cards at a time.

She said: "All primary school students have mobile phones now. Considering the obsession with online gaming and stealing of money, the problem has become more severe, and there should be restrictions on the purchase of top-up cards by primary school students, or a limit placed on the amount of credits that can be reloaded."

Wang noted that other countries like Japan and China have already implemented restrictions on online gaming for under-18s, and hoped more emphasis will be placed by the Singapore government.

Speaking to Shin Min reporters, some store employees shared that convenience stores are already working closely with the police to prevent instances of online gift card scams, with employees often checking in with customers on whether they were purchasing the cards for themselves or others.

Staff would also often remind customers to not fall prey to these scams.

One store employee told Shin Min that many customers often purchase top-up cards, including primary and secondary school students.

Most of them typically come accompanied by their parents, and in these circumstances, staff would usually not question further.

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Top image via Wikimedia Commons and Shin Min Daily News