A Reddit user has been left to count the cost after revealing a family holiday had been spoiled, with his niece and nephew using their savings to purchase Fortnite V-Bucks without his knowledge.
V-Bucks are the virtual currency used by Epic Games allowing players to purchase the various skins, harvesting tools and gliders that are released in the item shop, as well as each season’s battle pass and tiers.
Skins can start cheap at around 800 V-Bucks, worth roughly $10, but more extravagant designs can cost players at least $24.99 to add to their locker.
Reddit user u/A_Sad_Frog was left to rue his decision to allow his young niece and nephew to use his PlayStation account after they acquired over 65,000 V-Bucks despite having a verification number linked to his payment card.
He revealed that the children had spent around $531 on his account, bypassing the security measure by topping up their PlayStation wallet before each purchase.
Posting on the popular ‘Today I Fucked Up’ subreddit, the regretful PlayStation owner explained: “All told, £422.90 ($531) had been siphoned out over a week, with most of the bombardment happening yesterday. By the time I got back into to account to assess the damage, 20,000 vbucks had already been spent.
“I saw that the Playstation wallet can be topped up before each purchase, so they must have paid for it by first buying wallet currency, which apparently didn’t require a code.”
To make matters worse, the money was siphoned out of an account used by his girlfriend to save up for her family trip in the US – leaving her with virtually no spending money for the holiday.
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He added: “I feel so terribly terribly guilty for putting my girlfriend in this situation, the kids are upset that they did it. We’re not a rich couple, and this one has hit us both pretty hard.”
Epic Games offer hope
Unfortunately for the family, the PlayStation store doesn’t offer protection against accidental purchases and the bank is unlikely to help either.
However, Epic Games may come to the rescue after community coordinator Sean ‘MrPopoTFS’ Hamilton responded to the Reddit thread asking the original poster to get in contact so they can help solve the problem.
As over 20,000 V-Bucks have already been spent, it remains to be seen whether the user will receive any of his money back as although the purchase wasn’t intended, many items are likely to have been bought using the funds.
For now, we can only hope to receive an update on the situation in the near future.