KatPadi's Point

To Its Credit, Google Refunded Bro’s 15K Purchase

Like all kids nowadays, my 10-year-old brother plays a lot of computer and tablet games. One of his recent addictions is Clash of Clans. Apparently, my brother had a little mad shopping spree in Google Play Store.

my brother bought lots of these!!!

Long story short, my brother bought A LOT of things without my dad’s consent. By a lot, I mean A LOT:

a screenshot of my bro’s email

He had 32 transactions!

That’s a lot, considering each of the items was either 225, 450 or 900 pesos. His first transactions were just the 225 peso stuff and then the purchases eventually became 450 and 900. Haha.

The total amount: 15,075 PHP.

When I learned about the purchases, my initial reaction was “HOLY SHIT I AM DEAD”. Plus, my dad blamed me for teaching my brother internet-y stuff and he wants me to pay for it. (Come on, now!) I was getting desperate when a friend suggested that I email Google. I used this link for them to call me: https://support.google.com/wallet/contact/general_c2c. I got a call from them in less than 1 minute. 😀

So I explained my beautiful story to them. The support representative was very helpful and understanding. Unfortunately, they can’t verify the credit card because it’s not mine. I was just a mere “middleman” (who was blamed for my brother’s unauthorized shopping spree. WTF).  Being an old person that he is, my dad won’t simply do these things so I input his number to the same link above and they called him in less than a minute as well!

Google Wallet Team’s email

After about 5 minutes, my dad sent me an SMS saying that Google will gladly refund all the purchases!

They also explained that what happened is called “Friendly Fraud”. (TIL moment for me!) Apparently, “friendly fraud” is when an unauthorized person accidentally makes a purchase.

Here is a snippet from their refund confirmation email:

In your specific case of a “friendly fraud” purchase on the Google Play Store, I’ve been able to refund 15,075.00 PHP to your visa card as a 1 time courtesy. Your refund should appear on your visa card statement in 3-5 business days, but can sometimes take up to 10 business days, depending on the financial institution. You’ll see this refund in your Google Wallet transaction history any time that you sign in.

It’s just a one-time thing so I will never ever ever let my brother buy another online thing again. I was ready to make him sell cookies (or CHICHARON WITH SUKA!) to his classmates until Google came to the rescue.

Thank you.

What a relief.

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