12-Year-Old Blows $1,400 on Farmville

A 12-year-old UK boy has earned himself the grounding of a lifetime by racking up roughly $1,400 in Farmville charges, first emptying some $450 from his own savings account, and then charging another $950 to his unwitting mother’s credit card—all in the space of about two weeks, reports Mashable. FarmVille won’t refund the money, though it did helpfully suggest the mother password protect her computer in the future.

Her credit card company, meanwhile, said it wouldn’t refund the money unless she reported her son to the police. They added that had the money been spent on a gambling site it would have raised a red flag, but Facebook credits pass unnoticed. But the mother says she doesn’t blame either company—she blames her son. “When I asked him why he did it, he said that they had brought out ‘good stuff that I wanted.’” (More Farmville stories.)