Hyderabad: A teenaged boy in Andhra Pradesh spent more than half a million rupees in a matter of hours to pay for the purchase of online game Free Fair.
According to the police, a 13-year-old boy from Amalapuram town in East Godavari district, son of a man who works in Kuwait, got addicted to online gaming and spent huge sums of money from his mother’s two bank accounts.
The boy’s mother, Razia Sultana, was shocked to find that an amount of Rs556,000 (Dh27,168) had been debited from her two accounts on Saturday when she tried to withdraw some money from an automated teller machine (ATM). She immediately lodged a complaint with the local police. During the investigation, police found that the amount was spent by her own son.
The online game involved buying “weapons” to advance and score more points. The boy, who was playing the game on an app downloaded on his mobile, was paying money from his mother’s account and ended up exhausting almost the entire bank balance!
“The entire story came out when we verified the boy’s mobile phone”, said sub-inspector of police Yesu Babu. As the boy was a minor, police did not reveal his identity.
“The boy spent the money over a period of 20 days since he got hooked to the game,” Police inspector Suresh Babu said.
Police officials observed that the boy had all the necessary information to access the bank accounts and his mother failed to notice his activities for such a long time. Police were also investigation how the boy got access to an online game that was meant only for those above 18 years.
“The elders in the family failed to monitor the activities of the boy, leading to this lapse,” the police inspector said, adding that they were probing the incident from all angles.
The loss of money was a big shock for the family as the boy’s father had saved the amount to return to India and start a business.
“I don’t know how we will recover from this shock and monetary loss. My husband is also in a state of deep shock over the incident”, said Razia Sultana.
