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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026
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ITT: person deserves life changing debt and losing his job because he made a mistake
Cmon yall, you can be critical of someone's actions while also recognizing 6 figures of debt is absurd and not a reasonable outcome of this.
What really should be the case is that the dad learns his lesson, loses company card access, kid learns his lesson, google writes it off, and the kid's account is permanently banned.
We don't need to ruin someone's life for this
Legally, the kid wasn't old enough to contract the ads.
It would not stand in court.
I question using his work card to pay for some robucks for his kid.
I question that his credit card was saved for Robucks, but was able to be used on Google Ads.
I would not be surprised if he lost his job. I think that's not unreasonable though the economy sucks.
Losing his job is a 50/50 IMO. We don't know how his dad performed at work, if this is his first offense, etc. If all goes well, the dad gets google to write off the cost. Then the company sees that as a learning lesson and just revokes his card access. On the other hand, it could mean he is fired if he has already racked up other violations.
They're probably running unlimited Amex. Google should legally have to write off the ad spend and cease the account.
100k offense from negligence. I've not worked anywhere that would shrug that off. Of course, he could be family or otherwise protected.
100k offense from negligence. I’ve not worked anywhere that would shrug that off. Of course, he could be family or otherwise protected.
I've seen negligence cause costs approaching 100k at my current job (and thankfully leadership has changed so that isn't happening anywhere near as much) but the way I see it, if he's a really good employee and Google writes off the charges he could possibly narrowly keep his job. But I don't see him keeping his job if Google doesn't write off the ad fees. (Barring of course being owner/family to owners)
Right?
I swear people hearing stories like this want the absolute worst outcomes for everyone possible with 0 empathy.
He likely used the company credit card once, got some pop-up and instinctively clicked "yes" as most people do causing the card to be saved to the browser.
I'm sure the dad will find a way to reverse the damage (or at least greatly minimize it) and both will have learned their lesson.
Shit dad overall
Have you watched the video?
Why
Because he couldn't educate his child enough
- to know he couldn't spend that much on a whim
- to know minecraft videos aren't gonna be profitable starting solo in 2026
- to even feel bad at all for what he did
- to even realize how massive of a fuckup he just made after his dad found out
That child is done for.
The child is 9 be realistic
then I must have been a genius at 9 because I got an overcharge of like $10 on my phone subscription at about that age and when my dad told me I was mortified at what I had just done
My parents would never tell us what the money situation is, which is both a curse and a blessing. They would just say there was no money for it so I didn't understand the concept that well. Took high school to learn about balancing checkbooks and such to fully comprehend what they were saying.
I think parents should have a talk to their kids about finances in general though, not the nitty gritty, but understand how much goes into X to ensure Y. To find out the real value of a dollar in a more tangible way so they know, when mom and dad say they have $1K at the end of the month, that's a hard cap, and they may soft cap it to keep savings for emergencies.
This post is making me realize the position I’m in and how I got here.
My seven year old has my old switch, and uses that account. He always asks before buying anything and has never bought anything without permission. But he uses my Nintendo account, which is linked to my PayPal, which is linked to my credit card.
This card used to have something like $7000 limit. Last I checked though it’s at 32k limit. I should probably set some kind of spending limit just in case on this setup.
yes...please. Before you get a legal battle or some stuff like that on your hands...
to know minecraft videos aren’t gonna be profitable starting solo in 2026
How is this something you'd expect from a dad?
because it's common sense that spending over 100k while earning 0 is not profitable
Why is a nine year old on you tube, worse with their own channel?
It's kind of the lemonade stand of our time. Get some feel for how markets work, and exercise some generally applicable skills (video editing).
Hell no it isn't. I would never let my nine year old have a youtube channel.
I kind of get what you are driving at, but the huge difference is the kid actually runs the stand, and the customers are (likely) friends and neighbors.
Not some major profit corporation trying to use you as a product to sell ads.
Parents don’t parent anymore.
Dave said he entered the company card himself to buy Robux for his son, and it then sat saved on the Google account that also carries his work email, calendar, and files. Dave did not say why he used the company card for that purchase.
Well I don’t have much sympathy here. He used the company card to buy his son Robux. There was no reason to do this, he should have used his personal card. So maybe he thought he could skim a little money off the top for personal use and it ended up biting him in the ass.
don't you typically have to confirm if you want to save a card to your account as well? like I get pop-ups every time I manually type in my card cause I don't trust websites saving that info for more than I need it to. My parents specifically never saved their cards onto my sibs and my accounts to avoid frivolous spending. it's an awful situation to be in, but the dad kinda reaped what he sowed here
Roblox keeps the kid occupied and thus makes dad more efficient at his job. It's a legit expense.
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I was thinking the same thing... At my job if you have a company card, you have to explain ever cent spent on it every month at a minimum. How did he not have a difficult conversation with someone when he bought fucking Robux on the company card??
At my company the direct manager approves the detail - although if the total looks reasonable for the assignment they don't scrutinize individual expenses - then above that there are automated flagging checks only. If mixed in with legit expenses, and the description or vendor type or whatever didn't trigger the automated flagging, $20 for something inappropriate would never be caught.
So the goal was $20 on an ad campaign? Might as well light a $20 bill on fire. That won’t move the needle at all. Also why does a Minecraft channel of a nine year old need a advertising campaign. A nine year old has all the time in the world to learn how to make compelling content and grow organically. The goal for a nine year old shouldn’t be high subscriber/viewer count. The dad could have turned it into a teaching moment when the kid complained about low viewership instead of throwing money at it no matter how small it was supposed to be
Might as well have been a teaching moment.
"Here's 20 bucks, let's run some ads and see how it impacts your channel"
"Didn't change much? Well, wouldn't you rather spend that money on something else instead?"
Part of teaching kids about the Internet is showing what ads are, the way companies use them and that there's always a reason you're getting shown them
As a kid I wanted some shitty toy and my mom went "well, if that's what you want to spend your allowance on, sure. But I think it's probably not as good as you think", only for me to realize that she was right after I got it
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The perils of shitty parenting.
Edit: Goes way beyond shitty parenting. How did someone this stupid get a company card let alone one with a limit that high? It's disturbing.
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Oh well, looks like it's the company's problem now since it's their card. They should be more careful. Hope they have fun dealing with YT.
Anyway everyone needs to go to that kids minecraft YT channel, subscribe and hit the bell icon. Also sign up for his highest Patreon tier. Don't forget to donate to dad's legal fund.
And use your company card if you got one.
Holy shit the astroturfing in this comment section is crazy. If a 9 year old went into any other store and used a company card the store would reasonably refuse to sell 100k worth of goods. If the payment system Google implemented doesn’t even verify who is paying then that’s negligence on their part.
"Astroturfing" as if Lemmy is popular enough to have any of that yet
It was the dad who entered the card number. It was his fault. He created a Google advertising profile, but his business card on it, and then handed the reins to a child.
The biggest issue here is that dad thought he could embezzle $20 at a time, but accidentally did $120k all at once. lol. lmao even.
Lack of constant online surveillance is a good thing, btw. Expecting Google to have caught this doesn't make any sense.
The guy you're responding to has a valid point.
No way the son would get away with these actions at a physical store. "My dad was in here earlier, you saw him, i like to keep using his credit card tho, thanks"
Gee, I wonder why scamming is so huge after turning the digital market in to full "end-user responsibility" and tech companies removing carefully curated practices over the centuties for profit maximization.
Google earns billions of these scummy tactics to get users to spend as much as possible by removing any barriers of control and security. Why dont they get any of the responsibility?
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Seems to me that this is a dual fail. The father should have monitored his kid more closely and not used his company card for this, but Google should have noticed the unusual spending pattern and flagged it somehow—I mean, it looks like something someone might do using a stolen card, in which case Google might never have gotten its money, if you need a self-interested reason why they should have been keeping a more careful eye on this.
Why would a $120k spend on a business card (entered by the cardholder on an advertising account under their name) be suspicious?
This doesn't follow the pattern of a stolen card at all.
EDIT: Dad set up the YT brand account using his employer's Google Workspace. He handed all his work emails and sensitive auth to the kid too. Dad is stupid as fuck.
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