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Parents Beware.. Itunes Scams Especially TeamLava

My girls received an itouch for Christmas. They are both teens, smart kids. I thought I was pretty savvy too. I'm usually pretty alert to scams.  I don't click on emails, don't click on fb links, don't answer calls or ads for "you've won" etc, etc. However, I thought with itunes and apple being as large as they were and in the public eye, they were relatively safe. I told my girls they could only download "free" apps unless I had reviewed it first.  Yet today, I get a charge of $200 for a "free" app. Apparently some games present themselves as "free" but within the game purchases are made that are in real money.  The players usually just assume these "purchases" (in the form of... gems, berries, coins, etc) are just a part of the game, that they are not being charged actual money for them. I mean, who in their right mind would pay that kind of thing to play a game?  But apparently there are gambling addicts that do and these games are targeted in such a way that kids and even adults are lead to believe it is "just a free game".  They call this in game purchases... but the term that comes to my mind is "Bait & Switch".  I am not sure how this is legal and how with a company as large as Apple this hasn't had more of a fuss made. I had never heard about it until it happened to me. Then I started googling like crazy and found a few article mentioning it but not much.  I'm thinking that because this industry is so new not enough laws or regulations are in place yet and so it is the consumer who is getting the short end of the stick to put it nicely.  I am disputing with Itunes but from what I've read that doesn't seem promising in most cases. Then I will move to the credit card company but from what I'm reading that doesn't seem to work for people either. The scam artist in the situation is TeamLava LLC with the help of Apple. However I can't seem to find a way to make a complaint for TeamLava.  I tried to google complaints about them but am not finding much. There should be a way that people can see all the complaints or maybe hope to band together to eventually change such fraudulant practices.  My only silver lining is that I am only out $200 whereas some people have been bilked 1,000s before it's discovered.  Other lessons I learned after researching this..........


1) Do not give itunes your credit info. Make all your purchases through gift cards only. Then they can never over charge you or rack up these hidden charges.

2) Go to your itouch or your kids, go to settings, go down to restricted and there is a way you can restrict in game purchases (which I had never even heard of).

3) And even if you think you are scam savvy, the blood suckers are always coming up with newer ways to get you.  Keep researching.


I would love to see enough newspapers or people band together and put pressure on these groups so that this doesn't happen to more people.

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