170
At some level of carelessness or even stupidity, I can't feel empathy anymore.
Seems odd that he made a new ad account and bypassed the spending limits.
At max, unless you're being invoiced by Google and have a line of credit, you can spend around $500/day. It's a lot of money, but it would still take months to hit $100,000.
Any company that issues its employees credit cards with six figure limits will have no issue reversing the charges trying to sue Google.
I assumed it was his own company
Article references his manager
I'm sorry, why is a 9 year old even allowed to post to YouTube? There's a lot of mistakes the Dad made to lead up to this, hard life lesson for him mainly.
I watched Charlie's video on this and the dad takes a lot of the ownership of what happened and how having all your accounts connected via Google can backfire spectacularly when the only thing the kid really understands from this is, more money = more views, and "dad set a limit" so as long as the card clears, it must be good to go. Crazy story.
The first failure was allowing his kid to have a YT channel at all, or at least not one that is heavily monitored and restricted by him or the other parent. The financial fuck up is the consequences of poor parenting.
IMO that's not the issue
The issue is the lack of safeguards. In our rush to call out the dad based on the headline, we shouldn't let Google and the banks off the hook. ~~The dad should have set limits on the card/account~~ and paid closer attention to the kid's view/ad activities, but both google and the banks benefitted from the poor design/usability issues that led to this.
EDIT: Since it was the company card, maybe the dad couldn't have set limits on there. He used the company card on an older purchase, and since it was tied to his account, google offered the card as a payment option when the kid went to boost his ad. While I'm at it, screw the advertising industry that made YouTube into the mess it is now.
As for this bit
why is a 9 year old even allowed to post to YouTube
I remember about 15 years ago, a lot of kids wanted to post gameplay videos and music/art they made to YouTube. Some parents handled that poorly yes, but others took the time to watch the videos and approve them before anything was uploaded.
Kids want to explore their interests and it can be healthy to explore it with them, and teach them things along the way. Telling them no outright might push them to do it anyway, but this time without supervision.
Hard agree 🤑🫰😈
The dad was a dummy. First, your little kid shouldn’t have a YouTube channel. Second, you don’t use a company card to buy Robux. That’s a moronic thing to do. Might have gone unnoticed but then he got careless with it and it came back to bite him. Bad parenting all around. Don’t blame the kid, blame the dad. Hopefully he learns a hard lesson and can find new work.
- 9 yo Kid is making vidya
- Doesn't have many viewers
- Want to make kid happy
- Spend 20 $ on ads
- maybe_a_couple_views.png
- Three weeks later
- I'm literally 118 009 $ in debt
MFW
Honestly, if you can't understand how absolutely debilitating this is over a tiny misstep, I hardly know what to say. People commit manslaughter and get off easier that this. It's in no way reasonable to say that "Oh, you shouldn't have used the company card to pay 20$ for your kid - you deserve life-ruining debt".
Allowing a child to associate their happiness with view counts is a terrible idea. Already too many sociopaths in "content creation" as it is.
a tiny misstep
Multiple colossal missteps.
you shouldn't have used the company card to pay 20＄ for your kid
Correct. He should have spent $0 on a company credit card for his kid. He could have spent $20 from his own personal card, which presumably would have more reasonable limits. He should have ensured the card required a pin to use so that unauthorized charges couldn't accrue.
I feel bad for him, too, but he's incredibly stupid and I don't see why anyone else should have to cover his ass for his own fuckup.
Blame the dad
Honestly, it shouldn't be legal to pull more than like 100 USD off a card without re-verifying the card holder. Fuck these companies that take you're card once and have no fucking limit on how much they'll pull from it without verifying it's you.
Sure, you should have a limit on your card. That doesn't make it okay for others to exploit you when you make an obvious mistake. Let's not pretend these companies aren't aware how much money they're making off people's kids spending more money than they're allowed to.
Yeah the guy fucked up. Id also say the company fucked up if they didn't have the cards auto sending receipts from purchases somewhere as well. (Then again it could have been an option the father didn't have on once again). Anytime I've had a company card for something I would turn on all the notifications and input everything into the ADP app or whatever system they are using right away. I wouldn't even walk out of the store without taking a picture of the receipt to upload it to make sure if I lost thr receipt I wasnt going to be screwed. You're spending money that isn't yours, that shit will bite you.
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Google sitting over there just like "sux to be you, dude".
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.
Man steals from his employer, is surprised to get in trouble for it 🙄
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Irresponsible father gives his business credit card information to his son, is shocked by the results.
I think if I was caught like this, the last thing I'd want to do is talk to the media about it. Not even under a pseudonym. But this story is probably not here to make Google feel bad and return some of the money. This is a reminder for parents everywhere to review payment and parental settings on anything their kids use online. You can be smug enough to say my 8yo doesn't stream on Twitch or whatever because why tf would you let them anyway. But you're deleting the credit card off of Google Play because you forgot it was there because parenting makes you forgetful at times.
Time to sell the kid
It’s gettin’ boomer up in here.
It's getting child-free, but still majorly indebted to credit card companies up in here.
No way I'd ever be paying that.
How would you get around that? That amount of money is most certainly take-you-to-court worthy.
I'd just not pay it?
They will take you to court. When you lose, they will order you to pay. When you do not pay, they will garnish your wages. You would end up paying, the original debt, plus all of the legal fees and fines.
This is not something that gets sent to a debt collector who will call you a bunch of times before selling your debt to someone else.
Then court it is. The debt isn't in the father's name. The company would have to sue for it.
My credit card can only go to like $5000. Anything extra is the company's negligence.
The company will pay it, then it will sue the father for the non-work related charges. Maybe Google will cave and dismiss most or all of the charges. But if they do not, the company most certainly will not eat it and be satisfied. Losing his job would be the least of his worries. They will eventually petition to have the court collect the money via force (garnishment). Trust me, either way, you’d end up paying at least some amount.
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Feels like an ad for YouTube ad campaigns.
Oof.
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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026
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