something tells me the dad is the one is behind the channel and used his son as a shield. a 9year old isnt going to know how to set up a ad campaign.
if the child can read setting something like an ad campaing of can be pretty straigtforward.
A few years ago i found out that my reddit accound had some free credit and was thinking about using it for something silly and it was very very easy. (seems like companies like getting money for ads) The free credit was not much so they definetly wanted me to spend more
Pff. Kid probably has 8 years of experience using YouTube
With LLMs a 9 year old could manage. It’s made accessible anything to anyone. Like vibe coding to untrained programmers
Or gives the illusion of being accessible anyway, see end result.
At some level of carelessness or even stupidity, I can’t feel empathy anymore.
Seems odd that he made a new ad account and bypassed the spending limits.
At max, unless you’re being invoiced by Google and have a line of credit, you can spend around $500/day. It’s a lot of money, but it would still take months to hit $100,000.
Any company that issues its employees credit cards with six figure limits will have no issue reversing the charges trying to sue Google.
I assumed it was his own company
Article references his manager
I’m sorry, why is a 9 year old even allowed to post to YouTube? There’s a lot of mistakes the Dad made to lead up to this, hard life lesson for him mainly.
I watched Charlie’s video on this and the dad takes a lot of the ownership of what happened and how having all your accounts connected via Google can backfire spectacularly when the only thing the kid really understands from this is, more money = more views, and “dad set a limit” so as long as the card clears, it must be good to go. Crazy story.
The first failure was allowing his kid to have a YT channel at all, or at least not one that is heavily monitored and restricted by him or the other parent. The financial fuck up is the consequences of poor parenting.
IMO that’s not the issue
The issue is the lack of safeguards. In our rush to call out the dad based on the headline, we shouldn’t let Google and the banks off the hook.
The dad should have set limits on the card/accountand paid closer attention to the kid’s view/ad activities, but both google and the banks benefitted from the poor design/usability issues that led to this.EDIT: Since it was the company card, maybe the dad couldn’t have set limits on there. He used the company card on an older purchase, and since it was tied to his account, google offered the card as a payment option when the kid went to boost his ad. While I’m at it, screw the advertising industry that made YouTube into the mess it is now.
As for this bit
why is a 9 year old even allowed to post to YouTube
I remember about 15 years ago, a lot of kids wanted to post gameplay videos and music/art they made to YouTube. Some parents handled that poorly yes, but others took the time to watch the videos and approve them before anything was uploaded.
Kids want to explore their interests and it can be healthy to explore it with them, and teach them things along the way. Telling them no outright might push them to do it anyway, but this time without supervision.
Hard agree 🤑🫰😈
The dad was a dummy. First, your little kid shouldn’t have a YouTube channel. Second, you don’t use a company card to buy Robux. That’s a moronic thing to do. Might have gone unnoticed but then he got careless with it and it came back to bite him. Bad parenting all around. Don’t blame the kid, blame the dad. Hopefully he learns a hard lesson and can find new work.
- 9 yo Kid is making vidya
- Doesn’t have many viewers
- Want to make kid happy
- Spend 20 $ on ads
- maybe_a_couple_views.png
- Three weeks later
- I’m literally 118 009 $ in debt
MFW
Honestly, if you can’t understand how absolutely debilitating this is over a tiny misstep, I hardly know what to say. People commit manslaughter and get off easier that this. It’s in no way reasonable to say that “Oh, you shouldn’t have used the company card to pay 20$ for your kid - you deserve life-ruining debt”.
a tiny misstep
Multiple colossal missteps.
you shouldn’t have used the company card to pay 20＄ for your kid
Correct. He should have spent $0 on a company credit card for his kid. He could have spent $20 from his own personal card, which presumably would have more reasonable limits. He should have ensured the card required a pin to use so that unauthorized charges couldn’t accrue.
I feel bad for him, too, but he’s incredibly stupid and I don’t see why anyone else should have to cover his ass for his own fuckup.
As far as I can tell none of my cards have any single limits. When I remodeled my house I charged 45k to one to buy materials and pay contractors.
You have a credit limit so you can’t have a balance above it. You can easily spend 45K of you keep paying off, though
Of course there is an overall limit. I was just pointing out that charging a large amount single purchase doesn’t put anything in your way unless your purchase will exceed that upper limit
Allowing a child to associate their happiness with view counts is a terrible idea. Already too many sociopaths in “content creation” as it is.
Blame the dad
Honestly, it shouldn’t be legal to pull more than like 100 USD off a card without re-verifying the card holder. Fuck these companies that take you’re card once and have no fucking limit on how much they’ll pull from it without verifying it’s you.
Sure, you should have a limit on your card. That doesn’t make it okay for others to exploit you when you make an obvious mistake. Let’s not pretend these companies aren’t aware how much money they’re making off people’s kids spending more money than they’re allowed to.
Yeah the guy fucked up. Id also say the company fucked up if they didn’t have the cards auto sending receipts from purchases somewhere as well. (Then again it could have been an option the father didn’t have on once again). Anytime I’ve had a company card for something I would turn on all the notifications and input everything into the ADP app or whatever system they are using right away. I wouldn’t even walk out of the store without taking a picture of the receipt to upload it to make sure if I lost thr receipt I wasnt going to be screwed. You’re spending money that isn’t yours, that shit will bite you.
I bought jewelry with a company card so my SO wouldn’t see it on the statement. Paid that off immediately, no cost to the company. My boss was fucking LIVID and chewed me out later. I still have no clue why it mattered but I never did that shit again.
It matters because accounting has to ledger expenses and balance books. Its a super pain when an employee makes a non work expense and then maybe uses cash to pay off instead of the intracompany accounts, because then the outgoing and incoming doesn’t zero out…usually needs a manual books adjustment to account for the discrepancies.
Accounting is a big problem.
And you can say it was jewelry for your girlfriend - but realistically it could have been literally anything else. I’m not saying illegal dugs - but it sounds really shady and it puts the responsibility on the company.
With prior communication it might had been okay with your boss, or he would have lent you his personal card for this.Damn your drug dealer tales credit cards?? Fuckin righteous dude
It wasn’t your money to spend?
It was a credit card. I paid it off with my money. I did not spend their money, only used the card.
Ever heard of paying with cash?
It was a credit card. I paid it off with my money
Credit card is money. Even worse, it is money lent to your company.
Google sitting over there just like “sux to be you, dude”.
Dave said he entered the company card himself to buy Robux for his son, and it then sat saved on the Google account that also carries his work email, calendar, and files. Dave did not say why he used the company card for that purchase.
Man steals from his employer, is surprised to get in trouble for it 🙄
Hey everyone found the bootlicker
Keeping company card saved to an account that is not expressly used for work is a bad idea. Not sure how that makes one a bootlicker.
Didn’t he say he used the card for robux or a smal $20l ad campaign? That’s how it got saved in there. So, he (the dad) started it. Why did he use the company card at all for personal spending?
That’s what I’m saying. Work should be completely separate from personal life, doubly so for expenses. This is wholly on the father, of course. I like the idea of giving youngsters agency and such, but it must come with guard rails and some amount of supervision. The father clearly had no idea what he was getting himself into.
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Defending Google? He used a company card on an account to pay for Roblox money. Shouldn’t do that. If he had not done that, then he would not be on the hook for so much money. Also, please don’t tell people to injure themselves. Personal responsibility is a thing.
Google automatically saving credit cards is scummy, and should not be a thing.
Also what the fuck kind of company expense is Robux anyway? I’d get some questions from the tax authority if I did that. If you’re going to use a company card for personal expenses, at least do it for expenses that are believable as company expenses.
💯
Fun fact, two things can be true at the same time. Like corporations can be bad AND people can be stupid.
I can agree with you on this, but fuck the other bootlickers
That’s an odd take here.
Man uses company card for personal purchases, then leaves account management with 9 year old son.
Let’s say this was:
Bob has Bill’s key to his house, so he can take care of it while Bill is away. One day, Bob’s son says he needs some peanut butter. Bob says “let’s use some of Bill’s — he’s away, and we can replace it before he gets back.”
So Bob and his son go over to Bill’s place and take his peanut butter. Bob leaves the key with his son.
Later that day, his son is hungry but Bob isn’t around. So the son goes over to Bill’s house and eats everything in Bill’s fridge.
Bill gets home the next day and finds his fridge empty an a note from Bob saying he borrowed his peanut butter.
It doesn’t matter that Bill was off at a puppy shooting convention. Bob and his son are both in the wrong here.
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That’s an interesting case of hypocrisy you’ve got there.
It’s possible for everyone in this scenario to be wrong, and they are. Including you.
Irresponsible father gives his business credit card information to his son, is shocked by the results.
Time to sell the kid
20 years ago I read an article that stuck with me ever since … it detailed at the time that on average, whether you can afford it or not, it costs about $200,000 to raise a child to the age of 18.
So selling the kid would cut the parents losses over the 18 year period
Its a million, been a million since early 2000’s (source had kids early 2000’s) read about it back then- that’s over there lifetime 0-18. fuck outta here with anything less, plus god forbid you have to pay child support to a mother that refuses to work, but also not spend money you pay on said children. Source fuck family court
I read something similar more recently, and it was about $250k then. It’s probably even more at this present moment
I mean… $10k a year for survival for one human? I guess that makes sense?
The article I read at the time mentioned that this was the average bare minimum … like a single unemployed parent doing their best to raise and keep a child alive and fed until they were 18.
The cost is higher if there are two parents paying for expenses … and even higher if the parents have any bit of wealth
It’s gettin’ boomer up in here.
It’s getting child-free, but still majorly indebted to credit card companies up in here.
I think if I was caught like this, the last thing I’d want to do is talk to the media about it. Not even under a pseudonym. But this story is probably not here to make Google feel bad and return some of the money. This is a reminder for parents everywhere to review payment and parental settings on anything their kids use online. You can be smug enough to say my 8yo doesn’t stream on Twitch or whatever because why tf would you let them anyway. But you’re deleting the credit card off of Google Play because you forgot it was there because parenting makes you forgetful at times.
No way I’d ever be paying that.
How would you get around that? That amount of money is most certainly take-you-to-court worthy.
I’d just not pay it?
They will take you to court. When you lose, they will order you to pay. When you do not pay, they will garnish your wages. You would end up paying, the original debt, plus all of the legal fees and fines.
This is not something that gets sent to a debt collector who will call you a bunch of times before selling your debt to someone else.
Then court it is. The debt isn’t in the father’s name. The company would have to sue for it.
My credit card can only go to like $5000. Anything extra is the company’s negligence.
The company will pay it, then it will sue the father for the non-work related charges. Maybe Google will cave and dismiss most or all of the charges. But if they do not, the company most certainly will not eat it and be satisfied. Losing his job would be the least of his worries. They will eventually petition to have the court collect the money via force (garnishment). Trust me, either way, you’d end up paying at least some amount.
I don’t know if it’s for sure thing that the company would pay, honestly, either.
It could possibly just get stuck in accounts payable.
Do you know how credit cards work by chance
Contract law isn’t usually loser pays.
I don’t understand what you are trying to say.
They’re trying to say that losing a contract dispute doesn’t make you liable for ‘all’ of the legal fees, just your own.
In some situations the plaintiff can also have the defendant be required to pay their legal fees, this just isn’t one of them.
Well…perhaps YouTube’s TOS means you agree to pay such fees, if the father signed the kid up and agreed to them. And a court always has discretion, even if the default is to pay your own fees.
Now if he was an exec at the company, this would all be okay. They would laugh while paying off the bill for him.
Feels like an ad for YouTube ad campaigns.
Oof.
