PD Shops On Line: Part 2

My first call was to Zynga. My preschooler made this purchase, I explained. The young, childless man on the other end of the phone laughed and said, "Cool." I then yelled at the young, childless man from Zynga.  It was not Christ-like.  It was not patient.  It was tired and angry.

He put me on hold for a long time.

When he came back, I apologized to the young, childless man from Zynga.  He was sort of taken aback by that.  He said that PD had not spent the credits and that they should be refundable, but I would have to contact Facebook.

You can't call anyone from Facebook as near as I can tell, but Junior from Zynga showed me how to file a dispute on-line which I did immediately, explaining that my 3-year-old who cannot read made this purchase.

24 hours later I received an email from Facebook.  Since it was someone in my home, the email said, they were not responsible.  Non-refundable.  All sales final.  Please read their terms.

Well, I did read their terms and there was not one thing in it about 3-year-olds who cannot read.  I sent a firmly worded email back for which I have not received a response.

It was Saturday morning when I called Ricardo from my credit card company.

To get the full feel of how hilarious this conversation was, you must know that I speak with a rather thick Minnesota/Canadian/Scandinavian accent.  Lot of long vowels.  An occasional rolled "r."  If I were to invite you along on an afternoon boat ride, it would sound something like this:  We'rrrre goooing to taake the bowt owt this afternoooon.  Do you want to goh with? Richardo's first language was clearly Spanish and there were a lot of long pauses while we replayed what the other person had just said trying to figure it out. We laughed and had a great time because the first thing he said was not "cool," but "You must not worry about this one minute longer.  I will take care of this for you."

"I love you, Ricardo."  Okay, I didn't say that out loud, but I certainly thought it.

Ricardo says he gets 2-3 of these calls per day.  The night before he'd dealt with an upset mom whose 13-year-old had spent $3000 on Facebook.

Now, look.  Not for one minute do I claim I am not repsonsible for my small child's actions.  If that had been an elementary child who could read and have some understanding of what he had read and purchased, I'd be getting a lot of free kitchen and laundry help right now while he paid down his debt to me.  If I'd been out of the room for 30 minutes not checking on PD, I'd be kicking myself in the butt right now for not getting out the Play-doh.  In two seconds, in two clicks, my pre-reader spent $140 and I think that's a little bit snarky on the part of Facebook.

I have removed all of my credit card information from Facebook, and I'm naming my next child Ricardo.