A MUM has been left feeling outraged after being charged £180 for an app her son wanted that she says was advertised as free.
Sarah Bruce, from Essex, says she gave her eight-year-old son Caleb, who has a learning disability, the all-clear to download Epic Slime – Fancy ASMR Slime Game Sim after checking it was costless.
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But within moments, the mum-of-two got an email from the Google Play store saying she had been charged an eye-watering £109.99 for the app, which says it has “many different and colorful slimes to soothe your mind and de-stress”.
The 45-year-old told The Sun Online: “My son was on my phone, watching something on YouTube and an ad flashed up for a game called Epic Slime – Fancy ASMR Slime Game Sim.
“He showed it to me and said ‘this looks good’.
“I had a look and saw it was free, there was nothing on there to say it costs money, so he pressed whatever it was he needed to press to download it.
“I then got an email from Google Play to say thank you for your purchase for Epic Slime at £109.99.”
And to add to her woes, Sarah also got a message saying they had taken the first payment for a subscription at a whopping £68.99 a week.
Fuming, Sarah deleted the app and immediately contacted Google Play to cancel the subscription and request a refund.
“I explained what had happened but they came back to me and said it wasn’t within their policy to refund the money,” she added.
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“They said I needed to contact the app developer to request the money back, which I’ve done with no reply.”
Sarah managed to cancel the subscription and claw back the £68.99, but says she has had no luck getting a refund for the initial cost from Google Play or the app developer- meaning she is still £109.99 out of pocket.
She says other fuming users have slammed the app in reviews too as they have also ended up in similar situations.
“This needs to be made a thing because people need to be aware that it can happen,” she added.
“I looked on the Google Play app store to find this app to get the details for it, and there are all these comments from people saying the same thing and that they’ve been charged.
“I’m fuming – if it was a fiver or something I think I’d swallow it. But I’m a single mum of two children. £110 is a lot of money for me.”
Sarah said she has never encountered a problem like this before as she and her son always check apps are cost-free.
“My son is savvy enough to say to me ‘can I have this’,” she added.
“He asked me if he could download the app and we looked at it together and there was nothing on there to say about a charge or a subscription.
“Caleb was in absolute pieces because he thought he was in trouble.
“This sort of thing worries the life out of him.”
A spokesperson for Google said: “Google team are investigating this and if they discover an app that violates Google’s policies, they take action.”
App developer DiamondApp Entertainment have been contacted for a response.
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