TOKYO: Consumer centers across Japan have been flooded with requests for consultations about big spending on online games that children made without their parents’ permission.

Half of the requests were about elementary school kids. In some cases, children spent more than 1 million yen on in-app purchases.

The National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan advises that parents log out of their Apple or Google accounts when they let their children use their smartphones.

The number of requests for consultations about contracts concluded by elementary to senior high school students related to online games totaled some 4,000 in fiscal 2022.

Of them, 49.4 percent involved elementary school children, 37.6% were junior high school students, and the remaining 13% were senior high school students, according to a survey by the center.

Spending ranging between 100,000 and less than 500,000 yen accounted for 49.7% of the total cases. Amounts between 500,000 and less than 1 million yen came to 14.1%, and those who spent 1 million yen or over constituted 6.5%.

The number of consultation requests doubled from the fiscal 2018 level. In many cases, payments were made without permission using smartphones or tablet devices of parents with their registered credit card information.

If users stay logged in to their accounts, it is easy to change the passwords and other settings required for payment. Some cases involved elementary school children who admitted to changing passwords and adding their own fingerprints for authentication without permission.

Under the Civil Code, contracts concluded by minors without the consent of their parents or guardians can be canceled. But there are cases in which the guardian is considered to have made the payment if the payment was done on a terminal while the user was logged in.

As precautions, the national center said that parents should log out of their accounts when not using them, set a lower maximum amount for so-called carrier payment, which is added to regular mobile phone charges, and check bills frequently.

It is also important to take measures together with children, such as setting their rules on in-app purchases, the center said.

JIJI Press