A nine-year-old boy has allegedly racked up a staggering Rs 1.13 crore ($118,000) bill on YouTube advertising campaigns in a bid to boost the views of his Minecraft and Roblox videos.
A nine-year-old boy has allegedly racked up a staggering Rs 1.13 crore ($118,000) bill on YouTube advertising campaigns in a bid to boost the views of his Minecraft and Roblox videos. The shocking revelation was shared by the boy’s father, Dave, in a YouTube video titled ‘Message from Dad…Might Mike Plays Is Over,’ published on Tuesday (September 15). According to Dave, his son, Mike, used a company credit card linked to his Google account to fund the campaigns — without his knowledge.
“If you don’t know me, I’m Dave. I’m Mike’s dad. So apparently my son has been running some high-budget campaigns on YouTube that I was pretty much unaware of,” said Dave.
The spending spree came to light when Dave was summoned to a meeting with his manager, corporate staff and the finance team. There, he was shown a detailed breakdown of three weeks of transactions and asked to explain the missing money.
“They pull up a laptop, show me some tables on the screen, and basically asking me to explain why there’s $118,000 missing from the company card that was assigned to me,” said Dave.
Dave initially had no explanation for the huge charges. However, after going through the transactions, he realised where the money had gone.
“I didn’t really have an answer at first, but once we saw where all of the actual transactions were going, I kind of connected the dots.”
How did a nine-year-old get access to the company card?
Dave said Mike had started uploading gameplay videos at just eight years old, streaming directly from a PS5 without using sophisticated editing software.
The problem began when Dave himself entered his company card details to purchase Robux for his son. The card information was subsequently saved to the same Google account that was connected to Dave’s work email, calendar and files.
“That’s kind of where all of this went south. You know, looking back at everything now, that was kind of my mistake. That was the biggest mistake I made is having all of that sitting under one login,” said Dave.
Dave also acknowledged that, as the adult, he should have taken greater precautions to prevent his son from accessing the company payment details.
“He’s only nine. He didn’t fully understand what a company card meant or that a large number on the screen represented real money. I’m the adult in the situation. I’m the one who should have set up the limits or used a separate card entirely.”
But when Dave finally asked Mike what he had to say about the astonishing situation, the nine-year-old appeared to understand that he was in serious trouble.
“I’m definitely cooked.”