12-year old scammed in Roblox - HELP!!!

[Anonymous]

I think the people pushing to get Roblox to undo the trade are just not being realistic or fair.

This is the game. It is what is is. Highly doubt it was a bug. Your kid got scammed, which absolutely sucks. But you gave your child access to this game. And that is a lot of money to have tied up in an internet-based game OP. Call it a lesson learned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I know you probably don’t want to share his username here but just FYI I told my DD what happened and she asked if she could send him some items.

That’s so sweet of your daughter. Please thank her for the thought!

[Anonymous]

Oh that’s so sad! I’m so sorry for your son. I hope that customer service works!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously my 13 year old is asleep but OMG I am so sorry. She would be devastated!! I would definitely keep contacting customer service. She’s been scammed before also.

I will ask her as soon as I can tomorrow. She’s very savvy with this stuff.

OK I’m back with my kid who wants to know did your kid trade actual items? Was it in the game adopt me? She has items that she is happy to give your kid because she does not play like that anymore

He says he didn’t authorize the trade. Someone contacted him and offered an item for trade. He went to look at it. All of a sudden, all of his items (65K) had been traded for a 1K item. He says he didn’t hit any keystrokes and has no idea how the trade even happened.

He was not in Adopt Me.

That’s very nice of her to offer, but I don’t want to publish his username. Please thank her for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a naive question for anyone who's in the know. I don't let my 9 year old use the chat function (turned off) and don't allow him to accept friend requests from anyone he's not friends with in real life. Will following those rules help him to avoid something like this happening?

Sorry op, my son would be extremely upset too.

no, it won't help. it looks like the child accepted unfair trade by mistake because it looks like they ended with the other item.

or perhaps there was a bug in the software... it seems intentional but I don't see how a scammer would be able to take all the items because a player was just looking at theirs.

one of my kids once traded a neon cow or something for some worthless animal by mistake. i still remember that scream when she realized what happened.

My son is pretty experienced at Roblox - he says he did not hit any keystrokes. I can only guess this was some kind of scam software.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has happened to my DD. It is awful. I think the problem is that with one mistaken keystroke a player can accidentally accept a trade after which it’s irreversible.

I would tweet to Roblox and keep pushing, OP. We all know those items have no actual value and the programmers can easily restore the items if they so choose.

Thank you. We will keep trying.

[Anonymous]

Learning lesson for you and him. No more real money for a kid online. They are not equipped to handle it.
3 of my 4 kids play Roblox online- without any money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Learning lesson for you and him. No more real money for a kid online. They are not equipped to handle it.
3 of my 4 kids play Roblox online- without any money.

What do you mean they’re not equipped to handle it?

[Anonymous]

Think about how your son can learn from this experience. His naivete will turn to discernment online in the future. Is this legit? Does this whole thing check out? Is this online person real, or a scammer? And he's learning it at 12. It's not all bad. Report it, but also speak to him about the valuable life lessons he just learned about being careful in his online dealings of all types. It will serve him well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think about how your son can learn from this experience. His naivete will turn to discernment online in the future. Is this legit? Does this whole thing check out? Is this online person real, or a scammer? And he's learning it at 12. It's not all bad. Report it, but also speak to him about the valuable life lessons he just learned about being careful in his online dealings of all types. It will serve him well.

Based on OP’s later comment it looks like her kid was being cautious. He checked it out. Seems like somebody exploited a glitch that let him scam.

[Anonymous]

I also think this is a good lesson learned for your kid. I wouldn't try too hard to fix it for him. If you succeed the lesson will be unlearned.

FWIW, one of my kids has played Roblox off and on for years, including trading with strangers, and has never invested real money. My tolerance for spending actual money on apps hovers in the $1 to $2 per month range.

[Anonymous]

I agree this can be an opportunity to learn an important lesson, the lesson being: don’t let corporations screw your over. Raise hell.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm so sorry to hear this. Is the birthdate associated with your child's account incorrect? Because my child's account thinks he is under 13 (fake birthday) and he can't make any trades. If your child's account is also under 13, no official trades can happen, so it must have been a hack of some sort.

I hope it works out. My kid would be similarly devastated. I will be sure to talk with him again about trades and hacks.

And I don't know if you have done this yet, but be sure to change your child's password, and set up 2 factor authentication. It might not have helped, but maybe it can prevent future problems.

[Anonymous]

This is what my 13yo says:

Whether this is refundable depends on a couple of factors. First, ask your son two questions: Were you trading limited items directly from Roblox? Or playing a game on Roblox (such as "Adopt Me") where you lost your items?

If the former is true, then contact Roblox support with the description of a "bug" rather than a hack and hope for the best.

If the latter is true, then there is unfortunately almost nothing that you can do. Roblox (the company) has no jurisdiction over the community made games hosted on their platform. Your best bet is figuring out the developer of the game within Roblox that this bug/scam occurred in and contacting their support.

[Anonymous]

I think there was a post on here awhile back (or maybe I read it on FB?) where a young kid found a Roblox “hack” online that he tried to do and it resulted in Roblox locking and banning his account and he lost all his items.

This game is kind of scammy. Kids and teens are the ones making some of the most popular games and they make a few bucks from them while Roblox the company gets mega rich.