Teens Will Be Teens, Duh

Back in 2005, I was doing customer service for an online payment service. One day, I got a call from an irate gentleman who wished to report fraudulent transactions on a debit card. Uh-oh.

I’d learned by now that, rather than going through the “Do you have an account with us? Does anybody else in your household?” motions, it was heaps easier to just ask for the full card number and run a search across all accounts. If the card has already been compromised, what damage can it do at this point to tell me the full card number, right?

An account indeed popped up on which the card had been used. However, the name on the account didn’t match that of the caller, so I did some more probing and sniffing, all within rules and regulations. 

Long story short, it was Junior who had gone on a shopping spree. Apparently, for his fifteenth birthday, his parents had given him a Visa debit/credit card with no spending limit. And our service required that all customers be at least eighteen years of age when opening accounts.

Customer: “Well, how do we get his money back?!” 

Me: “Um… we rather… don’t, sir. There’s been no fraud committed because, well, the card owner spent his own money, which was well within his right.”

Christ on a bike, how Daddy Dearest blew a fuse!

Customer: “But that can’t be, because that was money for Junior’s birthday! Why didn’t you stop the transactions, then?!”

Yup. Daddy actually blamed us for not verifying Junior’s age prior to letting him open an account with us and go to town with his card.

It took all of my composure not to burst out laughing. Instead, I diplomatically replied:

Me: “Sir, it’s clearly written in our terms and conditions that account holders must be at least eighteen years of age when signing up for our services. That alone frees us from any responsibility — not that we had any in the first place. Secondly, it was not our company that decided it might be a good idea to give a fifteen-year-old his own debit card with no spending limit. You’re quite welcome to dispute the charges with the card issuer and see if they’re willing to reverse the charges, but, quite frankly, I doubt it, seeing as the card was always in the cardholder’s possession and all charges were made knowingly by said holder. As such, no fraud has occurred, and we are unable to assist you further. Thank you, and goodbye.”

And the amount squandered? Roughly DKK 4,200. Adjusted for inflation and the exchange rate, we’re looking at US$600 or €590 in 2022 money.

Happy birthday, kiddo! I hope you at least got to keep your stuff, whatever you bought.