This morning I received an email from a teacher in a neighbouring town with a cautionary tale that I think needs to be shared. Countless children will be unwrapping iStuff from “Santa” over the next few days. There are some extremely important settings that parents need to know about to avoid the prospect of facing unwanted bills from the App Store.

Here is the cautionary tale exactly as related to me…

Friends of mine have a new iPad. Their 9 year old son loves to play games using free apps that they’ve found. They recently discovered they have a bill of over $500 on their credit card thanks to “In app purchases”. What this means is that while the boy is playing, the game will offer to let him buy “food” or other items he needs to progress with his game. If he clicks on “Buy” there is no request for a password or other authorization. It just goes right through to his parents’ credit card!

My colleague kindly shared the lesson learned through this painful experience.  Here is what you can do to to ensure that this does not happen. Open ‘Settings’ and under the ‘General’ settings, click on ‘Restrictions’.

Now click on ‘Enable Restrictions’ on the new screen that opens. The screen shown below will then open and you will be asked to set a 4-digit restrictions pass code.  You need to enter a pass code, and you’ll be asked to confirm it when you do.

After creating your restrictions passcode, another screen will open. Scroll down to the section ‘Allowed Content’ and make sure that ‘In-App Purchases’ are turned off, as shown below.

The passcode you created will have to be entered and In-App purchases turned on before any In-App purchases can be made.  The family in the story above was able to have the charges to the App Store reversed, but I suspect it wasn’t easy.  So, I hope this information is helpful in saving hassles and headaches.  Please share this post with anyone whom you think needs to know.