Minors secretly recharge and reward on the Internet platform, ranging from a few thousand yuan, as many as tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan

  "Bear Kid" recharges and moves your finger to apply for a refund "Tired Brain"

  Reading tips

  During the epidemic, minors in long-term "house" families have more opportunities to contact mobile phones and tablets. They secretly recharge games and reward anchors from time to time in the media. Many parents report that many gaming platforms do not strictly abide by the relevant regulations and have loopholes in real-name identity verification. Parents face difficulties in proof, poor procedures, and discounted refunds when applying for refunds.

  A 10-year-old girl recharges nearly 20,000 yuan for playing games, and a 12-year-old primary school student spends 40,000 yuan to reward a game anchor... In recent years, news about minors recharging and rewarding games has been seen in the media from time to time. During the period of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, the long-term “house” minors have increased their chances of contact with mobile phones and tablet PCs due to internet lessons and other reasons, and there have also been more minors for the game “Krypton Gold”.

  "Micro-Krypton" is tens of yuan, and "Heavy Krypton" is tens of thousands of yuan. Many game platforms do not set a limit on "Krypton Gold" for minors. In May this year, the Supreme People's Court issued an opinion to support the repayment of the “Bear Kid” recharge, but many parents reported that the phenomenon that recharge is easy to refund is still difficult.

  Asked why the verification of real-name system is useless

  "In just one minute, the child charged two games of 648 yuan." On June 26, Ms. Li from Maoming, Guangdong, sent a mobile game to the complaint platform and demanded a full refund. On June 14, Ms. Li's 11-year-old son recharged 648 yuan for the game several times after recharging the "6 Yuan Meng New Gift Pack", and the cumulative recharge reached 9462 yuan. Ms. Li found that the game does not limit the recharge of minors, nor does it limit the time that minors use the game.

  Ms. Li is not the only one with this trouble. On July 6, the acceptance complaints released by the Shaanxi Provincial Consumers Association in the first half of 2020 showed that game recharge complaints have become a hot topic. During the online class, some minors secretly recharged the game, a few hundred yuan less, tens of thousands more or even more than 100,000 yuan.

  According to the "Notice on Preventing Minors from Addicting to Online Games" issued by the National Press and Publication Administration in 2019, all online game users must use valid identity information to register game accounts. Online game companies are not allowed to provide game payment services for users under 8 years old. For users over 8 years old and under 16 years old, the single recharge amount should not exceed 50 yuan, and the cumulative monthly recharge amount should not exceed 200 yuan; For 18-year-old users, the single recharge amount should not exceed 100 yuan, and the monthly recharge amount should not exceed 400 yuan.

  Some consumers report that although there is a clear ban, there are still online games and mobile game companies that play "routines", do not make hard requirements for real-name authentication, allow visitors to recharge, and do not limit the game use time of minors.

  On July 13, a reporter from Workers Daily downloaded a mobile game. Although there is a real-name authentication requirement on the login interface, after entering a simple account number and password, you can enter the game smoothly. The recharge interface directly jumps to WeChat Pay , The whole process does not require any identification.

  "The child secretly wrote down the parent's payment password, and when face recognition was needed, he shook the camera in front of the parent." Ms. Zhang, who works in Guangdong, said that the payment record was deleted after the minor had recharged. Parents who are not very sensitive are caught by surprise and can only be pursued afterwards.

  Question 2: How many difficulties will it take to recover the refund?

  At present, the review processing result of Ms. Li’s refund request is displayed as “Not eligible for refund”. After continuing to communicate, the game company stated that it needed to contact customer service to deal with follow-up issues.

  Some minors are addicted to games, excessive consumption and other issues have been widely concerned by society. The Law on the Protection of Minors (Draft Amendment) has added a chapter on network protection, which clearly proposes to protect the lawful rights and interests of minors in cyberspace.

  In May this year, the Supreme People’s Court issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Proper Trial of Several Civil Cases Involving New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Situations According to Law (Part 2)", which clearly states that persons with limited civil capacity who participate in online paid games or online without the consent of their guardians If the live broadcast platform "rewards" and other means spend money that is incompatible with its age and intelligence, and the guardian requests the network service provider to return the money, the people's court shall support it.

  Although there are rules for requesting refunds, after real money is credited to the game company, it is not easy for parents to recharge the money.

  Proof of evidence is difficult-Zheng Ziyin, director of the Juvenile Law Professional Committee of the Guangdong Bar Association, said that to recover the money, parents must prove that their children downloaded, registered accounts, used and recharged. However, since minors usually use parents’ mobile phones, which are bound to the parents’ identity information and bank cards, it is difficult for the game service provider to distinguish the true identity of the recharged user when recharging. In the case of insufficient evidence, some game companies believe that "recharge is the player's independent click."

  Obstacles in the process-"Many customer service staff are robots, and disputes cannot be resolved." On the complaint platform, some parents said that it is difficult to find manual customer service in the game interface. Even after finding a complaint channel for manual customer service, they often get evasive answers such as "not eligible for refund" and "sorry I can't help you".

  Rebates are discounted-some parents report that from January 15 to May 20, children under the age of 10 recharge the game 2808.2 yuan without the parents' knowledge, but the platform will only refund 419 yuan. The parent believed that the platform set up "overlord clauses" on the issue of refund, and the amount of refund was "discounted" at will. In addition, the complicated refund process and slow progress are also issues that consumers complain more.

  Three questions about what is more important than refunds

  "In front of games designed by adults and professional technicians, juveniles with insufficient ability to identify are vulnerable groups, and it is impossible to ask them to be'cautious' every time from the perspective of adults." Zheng Ziyin said.

  Zheng Ziyin pointed out that in practice, some game companies still have loopholes. Including real-name verification is fake, there are loopholes in the recharge payment, and the requirement of not providing game services to minors from 22:00 to 8:00 the next day is not strictly implemented. In addition, some games will invite players to join the QQ group or WeChat group through various methods, such as inducing recharge to purchase props, etc. in order to successfully clear the game, so that minors are unpredictable.

  Introduced "youth mode", set "health time", and run anti-addiction system. In recent years, in order to prevent minors from indulging in games, some game platforms have introduced multiple measures. On June 17, Tencent Games stated that in the new stage, face recognition verification will be initiated in two scenarios: game login and payment.

  "Enterprises cannot be ambiguous about preventing minors from indulging in games. However, technology is a means that cannot completely solve the problem of minors from indulging in games." Sun Hongyan, director of the Juvenile Research Institute of the China Youth Research Center, believes that "family Factors such as relationships and family upbringing have a great influence."

  Sun Hongyan pointed out that in the Internet era, parents should be open to their children's exposure to the Internet, establish good communication, do a good job in consumer education and financial education, and should also reflect on how they should manage their money.

  "On the one hand, guardians must effectively fulfill their education and protection obligations to minors, and they cannot push all responsibilities, especially their own supervisory responsibilities, to enterprises and society." Zheng Ziyin said, on the other hand, the network is not an extra-legal domain, All game platforms and companies must strictly implement the current laws and regulations, and regulate the online game companies' own operating behavior. In addition, for the recharge of online games for minors, in addition to the principle of judicial interpretation, the judicial department should make more specific rules for the confirmation of evidence as soon as possible.

  Our reporter Zhao Chen