‘Parents’ own fault’: teen girl in China splurges US$64,000 on phone games in 4 months, depleting family savings
- Teacher at the girl’s school tipped off her mother, who then discovered her bank account was almost empty
- The 13-year-old spent vast sums in a few months after her habit turned into an addiction and schoolmates pressured her to buy games for them
A 13-year-old girl in China addicted to online gaming spent 449,500 yuan (US$64,000) she stole from her mother on app games in four months has shocked mainland social media.
The unnamed secondary school student from Henan province in central China stole from her mother after becoming addicted to gaming apps on her smartphone.
The girl’s mother, surnamed Wang, only discovered the theft when a teacher told her she feared the girl was addicted to online pay-to-play games after noticing she spent a lot of time on her phone at school.
When Wang checked her bank balance, she found only 0.5 yuan (US$0.07) in her account, Elephant News reported.
In a viral video posted with the news report, Wang is shown flipping through bank statements detailing every transaction her daughter made paying for the online games.
When her father confronted the girl about her spending, she admitted she had spent 120,000 yuan (US$17,000) buying the games, 210,000 yuan for in-game purchases, and 100,000 yuan buying games for at least 10 of her classmates.