一位被称为“戴夫”的父亲正面临被解雇的可能，起因是他9岁的儿子在YouTube频道“Mighty Mike Plays”上不慎花费了11万美元购买广告。
事件发生的原因是戴夫将公司的信用卡绑定在了一个共享的谷歌账户上，该账户既用于工作，也用于他儿子的频道。最初，戴夫设置了20美元的推广费用来帮助儿子增加频道流量。然而，儿子随后自行发起了广告活动，由于没有设置消费上限，信用卡便持续扣款。在三周内，孩子发布的《我的世界》和《罗布乐思》视频产生了巨额广告费用，导致了超过10万美元的未经授权扣款。
戴夫在与雇主财务部门开会时发现了这笔巨额债务。此后，他暂停了该YouTube频道，目前正在等待公司关于是否解雇他或要求其偿还资金的决定。这一事件凸显了保存支付信息的风险，因为YouTube的推广工具会自动使用存储的公司信用卡。作为应对，戴夫计划实施更严格的家长控制，并删除账户中所有保存的支付方式。
A father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft and Roblox gameplay videos over about three weeks, all charged to a company credit card the father had saved to his own Google account, which his son also used. The father, who identifies himself only as Dave, described the incident in a video titled “Message from Dad…Mighty Mike Plays is Over.” posted to the boy’s channel on Sept. 15. Dave said he was called into a meeting with his manager, corporate staff, and finance and shown the advertising charges.
Mighty Mike Plays (@MightyMikePlays67) is a 9-year-old’s Minecraft and Roblox gameplay channel with about 24,000 subscribers and 182 uploads as of early Sept. 16. Dave said it started when the boy was around 8, streaming straight from a PS5 with a cheap headset and no editing. Early videos got 5 to 11 views, he said. 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.
Dave said that after the boy complained about views, he set up a roughly $20 promotion and talked through the steps aloud: set a budget, select who sees the ads, hit run. The boy then created his own campaigns, and Dave said his son did not understand the $20 as a limit. “The credit card, it just says approved every single time,” Dave said in the video. Finance showed him three weeks of ad spend totaling $118,000 on campaigns titled “Mighty Mike,” “Epic Roblox,” and Minecraft gameplay.
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Three of the promoted videos reached around 200,000 views. As of a check at 12:26 a.m. ET on Sept. 16, the channel’s three most-viewed gameplay videos stood at 260,000, 224,000, and 178,000 views, with a run of uploads above 1,000 views and most of the rest under 100. Four days before Dave’s video, the boy had posted a video titled “NeverMyFault made a Short about my Ad?” about another creator noticing one of his promotions; it had about 70,000 views.
(Image credit: YouTube / Mighty Mike Plays)
Dave said the matter has been escalated and he does not yet know whether he will get to keep his job or have to repay the costs.
Google’s own help pages say a payment method entered for any Google purchase is stored in a payments profile tied to the Google Account and is offered again for the next purchase. The profile is also shared across Google Ads and other Google products. YouTube’s Promote tool, which Google describes as a simplified version of Google Ads, walks a creator through a goal, an audience, a budget, and an end date. Dave did not say which interface his son used, but the steps he described match Promote’s. Google Ads does not allow users under 18, but the account was the father’s.
In a separate case, the FTC announced on Sept. 4, 2014, that Google would refund at least $19 million to parents billed for children’s unauthorized in-app purchases on Google Play, and required it to get express consent before billing. That covered Google Play, not Google Ads. Dave said the family will remove saved payment details, add spending caps, and set up parental controls, and that the channel is paused until “real guard rails” are in place.
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