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For the most part, my husband and I charge all our regular bills and expenses to credit cards to rack up rewards. Then, a few times per month, I sit down to look over our charges and pay our credit card bill in full.
This is exactly what I was doing in the middle of July when I sat down to go over my Chase Sapphire Reserve® bill. On this particular day, however, I got the shock of my life!
In addition to the regular charges on my account that would normally be there — charges for groceries, dining, and utility bills, for instance — I also had hundreds of Roblox charges on my account.
Hundreds of separate charges, and that is not an exaggeration.
Read more: Credit card fraud is on the rise, but you can protect yourself by taking 5 easy steps
I immediately went into panic mode and began thinking of how this could have possibly happened. My preteen children both have the game in question — Roblox — on their phones, but they had never made a bunch of charges on their accounts. Plus, I knew for a fact my husband had set up purchase authorization on their phones, which means they would have had to have known and entered our private security code.
My kids aren’t perfect by any means, but I just knew they didn’t do that.
I started adding up the charges. In total, there were $2,500 in purchases made with Roblox on my Chase Sapphire Reserve® account. Some of the charges were for $0.50 or $0.88, while others were for $19 or $39 or even $75 in some cases.
My husband and I managed to get into our youngest child’s Roblox account on her phone, and that’s when we figured out what happened.
A Roblox scam and lessons learned
When my daughter got home from school that day, my husband and I interrogated her about the many Roblox charges found on her account. Ultimately, we found out that she had been logging into the Roblox game through a third-party website that had been promising her extra Roblox points for doing so.
Read more: Someone charged hundreds of dollars to my wife’s credit card, but we weren’t on the hook because we didn’t pay with debit
In the meantime, my daughter’s phone had recently been through an update that effectively removed parental oversight and authorization for purchases. Of course, we did not realize this had happened until after the fact.
We’re not exactly sure how the scam worked from there, and perhaps we’ll never know, but that at least made sense. After all, many of the charges on her account took place in rapid sequence, and often in several increments of $20 to $50 within a single minute. Even if our daughter had decided to make purchases on Roblox, the sheer number of purchases and the amount of money spent were insane. There’s no way she would have done any of that.
Obviously, we took the opportunity to explain to our child that she should never share her log-in credentials with anyone else — even a third-party site that was offering her something for free. We explained to her what had happened, and that this site had somehow hacked her account and made all these charges.
Read more: Identity theft is a major problem, but these 5 credit card protection programs can help keep you safe
She was devastated, mostly because she had no idea! She was also extremely worried that we wouldn’t get out $2,500 back since the charges were clearly made in her Roblox account.
How we got our money back
Regular APR
16.99%-23.99% Variable
Pros
- Annual travel credit can effectively shave $300 off the annual fee if you use it
- Strong travel insurance
- Strong bonus rewards on travel and dining
Cons
- Very high annual fee
- The new DoorDash statement credits may not be useful for everyone, which can make the recently increased annual fee harder to justify
- Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $900 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®
- $300 Annual Travel Credit as reimbursement for travel purchases charged to your card each account anniversary year. Through December 31, 2021, gas station & grocery store purchases will also count towards earning your Travel Credit
- 3X points on travel immediately after earning your $300 travel credit. 3X points on dining at restaurants including eligible delivery services, takeout and dining out & 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases
- Get 50% more value when you redeem your points for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards®. For example, 60,000 points are worth $900 toward travel
- With Pay Yourself Back℠, your points are worth 50% more during the current offer when you redeem them for statement credits against existing purchases in select, rotating categories
- 1:1 point transfer to leading airline and hotel loyalty programs
- Access to 1,300+ airport lounges worldwide after an easy, one-time enrollment in Priority Pass™ Select and up to $100 application fee credit for Global Entry or TSA Pre✓®
- Count on Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Lost Luggage Insurance and more
Read Our Review
While I was definitely stressed about seeing so many unauthorized charges on my credit card, I wasn’t too worried about resolving the issue. After all, I had a Chase credit card linked to my account, and Chase is known for its excellent protection against unauthorized charges. I have also had plenty of success disputing fraudulent charges on other Chase accounts in the past, so I had confidence it would all work out.
Read more: The best Chase credit cards of 2021
The day I noticed the charges, I immediately called Chase to initiate a dispute on all the fraudulent Roblox charges on my card. We also notified Apple about the fraud since they initiated the Roblox payments on my daughter’s iPhone.
I was granted a temporary credit for all the charges right away, but they were all wiped from my credit card account within a week. I was incredibly relieved to see this happen, but we still removed all payment methods from my daughter’s phone just to be on the safe side.
Read more: Here’s what to do if your credit card is lost or stolen, whether you’re at home or traveling abroad
Bottom line
I’m not thrilled with the situation that went on with my kid’s Roblox account, but the situation did underscore something I believed in already. I never, ever link my actual bank account to anything, and I never use my debit card for purchases, either. There is just too much that can go wrong when you do, and your liability for unauthorized charges is not the same as the $0 fraud liability credit cards offer.
Read more: 4 reasons why you should use a credit card instead of a debit card
You don’t have to look very hard to find instances where fraudulent purchases were made and havoc ensued. For example, BBC News recently covered the story of a family with a child who spent 3,160 euros (around $3,700) on a game called Hidden Artifacts. The charges wiped out his bank account. The family contacted iTunes and the game manufacturer, yet they were unable to recoup the money as of publication.
In another story that ran in The Guardian, an 11-year-old girl racked up 2,400 euros (around $2,810) in Roblox charges through her mother’s PayPal account. Ultimately, Apple agreed to refund a little less than 760 euros of the unauthorized charges, but the family was left on the hook for the rest.
At the end of the day, my Chase Sapphire Reserve® card comes with a slew of important benefits, but not all of them have to do with rewards. Zero fraud liability is an incredibly important cardholder benefit that should never be taken for granted.
100,000 points
Good to Excellent
Featured Reward
3 Free Nights (valued up to 50,000 points each) after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months, plus 10x total points per $1 spent on up to $2,500 in combined purchases in select categories within your first 6 months
Credit Needed
Good to Excellent
Featured Reward
$200 after spending $500 on purchases in the first three months from account opening
Credit Needed
Good to Excellent