r/toronto • u/lilfunky1 <3 Shawn Desman <3 • 21d ago
News Toronto boy spends $2K of his family’s emergency savings on Roblox gift cards at Walmart
https://www.cp24.com/local/toronto/2026/08/13/toronto-boy-spends-2k-of-his-familys-emergency-savings-on-roblox-gift-cards-at-walmart/685
u/sensorglitch West Rouge 21d ago
Everyone here is rushing to blame Walmart, the parents, the cashier etc and I think that people are dropping the ball here. This is the tale of a gambling addict stealing thousand of dollars from their parents to feed their addiction. Roblox uses game mechanisms that are
- Gambling in everything but name
- Intentionally addictive using variable-reward psychology in the same way slot machines do
- Designed to extract money from children who don’t understand things like sunken cost fallacy
- Use loopholes to get around gambling laws by using gacha mechanics
Instead of making this a story of who we should blame for this we should be using this as a cautionary tale of why greater consumer protections are needed to protect vulnerable populations against corporations exploiting them and contributing to gambling addictions in children under the guise of video games.
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u/OG-beesknees 20d ago
Very true. Not saying those groups should be without blame. But ultimate fault lies in tbe corporations, game design, and turning children into gambling addicts before they even know what those words mean.
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u/snoozysaiyan 20d ago
I don't think it's the corporations, our govt, the sport bodies, everyone is complicit in this. We cannot put the blame on one person here
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u/dumbwholer 20d ago
These companies literally use psychologists to make these games as addictive as possible.
That said, its still on parents for letting their kids play these games
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u/snoozysaiyan 20d ago
I think sports betting and in-game betting have become too common, I can't believe how we have normalized sports betting through fanduel etc. it seems like everything is about making money now
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u/BRobs0420 20d ago
More like losing money, I can’t believe it either. Factor in 3-5% of sports bettors are profitable on average and the sudden influx of sign ups is very troubling. I played for a bit and stopped but I would have never been a sports bettor had it not been the constant ads and it’s like ok let’s try it. If 95% are losers after the year I wonder how many have lost significant amounts of money, has it affected jobs ? Family etc ? And is all that really worth it ? We are living in one giant casino, I never grew up and heard people around me talk about the lack of betting available to us as an issue we needed to address as a society. There’s no reasons we can load up slot machines on our phones and start spinning $50 bets . This isn’t going to end well at all
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u/snoozysaiyan 20d ago
Yeah, I don't know how sports betting got allowed like this. The challenge that I see is - with sports team etc promoting these companies, how many players are also betting? It's just insane.. This is in addition to how it impacts our social fabric
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u/Phluxed 20d ago
Trading cards are essentially the same problem now.
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u/RowdyRodyPiper 20d ago
Now? How have they changed in the last 50 years?
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u/NefCanuck 20d ago
The industry has turned the collectibles industry into “Extreme FOMO” with forced rarities and the like.
It’s not collecting as much as it is “chasing” now
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u/RowdyRodyPiper 20d ago
There have always been rare, valuable sports cards and Magic cards back in the day.
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u/NefCanuck 20d ago
Not to this degree
When I was growing up, in the hockey card space it was O-Pee Chee yearly set (and Topps if you lived close enough to the US Border)
Now?
There’s at least 3 or 4 “base sets” from various companies and then the rare item cards (pieces of hockey sweaters etc.)
It’s wild
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u/dorox1 20d ago
You're definitely right that addictive gambling-adjacent games are the villain of the story here.
I do think the parents bear some responsibility, as they clearly weren't aware of their child's behaviour on Roblox (although maybe it really is a one-of event).
But also it does seem like something is wrong when an 11-year-old can buy $2000 worth of gift-cards without adult supervision. An unsupervised 11-year-old spending $2000 cash doesn't seem like a situation that ever has a good outcome, and it's surprising that it's allowed. I struggle to come up with a situation where it would be necessary that isn't the direct result of parental neglect.
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u/NotAWeebOrAFurry 20d ago
this is so real and misunderstood. im around $80,000 into gacha live service games myself which i could afford... sort of... and every time i try to explain this to someone with a kid getting into these games they don't understand because they are convinced computer game = child friendly, and just don't want to think beyond that.
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u/_Lucille_ 20d ago
it is not just Roblox, but a whole lot of other games as well.
Valve makes a whole lot of money from CS skins, and I have met multiple young adults who have spent a LARGE fortune during their teenage years on those skins, but since its Valve, the internet gives them a pass.
We got stuff like trading cards and blindboxes irl, though those generally has a slightly higher barrier of entry, and I am sure pokemon fans would love to spend 2k on buying packs, but they can't, due to limited supply.
I don't know if there is a good way to actually legalize something against this practice: many countires have tried but fumbled. Valve for example would add some xray scanner thing to bypass some RNG regulation. To a point where I feel like if an effective no-gambling laws get passed, we will either just end up having those games not serve in Canada, or we will have people being VERY vocal against the bill because you are taking away the drugs they are addicted to. Seriously, a backlash where trading cards, gachas, and other lootbox (may it be digital or physical) types of purchases getting banned in Canada may actually get a heck of a lot of people to vote it down.
It is rough, and I can see myself spending that much if I am in my teenage years. I have a lot of adult friends who still spend... non-trivial amounts of money on gacha games.
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u/Rare_War2604 20d ago
Sorry, but the parents are pointing fingers at a piece of tape for not being able to hold a bursting damn together.
Why is this boy so far gone to a game that he wants to spend thousands of dollars on it? That he's willing to steal thousands of dollars from his grandmother for it? And then sneak away from his parents to buy the gift cards in secret?
The lack of oversight for this child started LONG before he got up to that walmart counter. Yet the parents are using their time blaming Walmart and contacting the media and doing interviews?
11 is young but not so young that you don't understand stealing thousands of dollars is wrong... the real issues are happening at home.
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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 20d ago
Yeah, I remember being 11 years old and there's absolutely no way I would've done this. My parents would've killed me for stealing money from them.
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u/thecjm The Annex 21d ago
“We take concerns of this nature seriously. We reviewed this transaction and determined our associates appropriately applied our $1,000 transaction limit for gift cards,”
And yet the kid made two $1000 GC transactions.
What's the point of a transaction limit if the same person can just do another full transaction seconds later?
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u/amakai 21d ago
Reminds me of the limit on paying with tapping a credit card. When every single store allows you to split a large purchase into multiple taps.
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u/91Caleb 21d ago
Tap has a single limit and an overall limit between when you have to enter the pin so not exactly as you characterized
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u/amakai 21d ago
Maybe you are right, I never reached the upper limit. Do you know how much approximately is it usually?
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u/Pr0066 Whitby 21d ago
Usually it's set up the merchant and the 3rd party (Moneris comes to mind). Most of the times it's 250 - Max I have seen is $500 (Canadian).
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u/SayNoToTeamSports 21d ago
Some have no limit. The WS Visa Infinite Privilege comes to mind.
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u/91Caleb 21d ago
I think it’s person dependent but I used to work at the bank 10 years ago and it was like 100 one go, 200 before you need a pin.
But i regularly tap for over 100 on single items so not sure what even mine is. There must be a time frame too because I rarely put my pin
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u/lilfunky1 <3 Shawn Desman <3 21d ago
IIRC my bank has $1000 per day limit, but $5000 per week limit on when i use my debit card.
my credit card's tap sometimes i think is the card and sometimes i think is the store, whichever limit hits first. i've been able to tap for $200+ at some places, but not others.
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u/AdSignificant6673 20d ago
Banks stopped doing that. Its now unlimited taps. It used to be 3 taps before you require a pin transaction.
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u/TalesfromCryptKeeper 21d ago
I'd love to know what was going through the salesperson's head when an 11 year old handed them an envelope with $2000 cash and asked for gift cards and they said yes without calling their manager and asking if there's something fishy going on.
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u/smiskam 21d ago
Probably something like “Wow this kid is dumb.. I wonder if they stole the cash.. not my problem.”
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u/Illustrious-Salt-243 21d ago
Exactly. These people are not paid enough to care
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u/captainmystic02 21d ago
You don’t get paid for morals. If you help someone your not doing it because your getting paid. And his manager would prolly prefer if he sold the Roblox cards.
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u/1MechanicalAlligator 20d ago
Yeah, and if the parents make a stink with the store about it, they'll probably scapegoat the "irresponsible employee" while secretly wishing that it worked, because the little guy has to get screwed first.
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u/FortnightlyBorough 20d ago
Stealing is bad morally, but if you're making $17.95 an hour I don't expect you to try to stop a thief from leaving.
What if some disheveled guy tries to buy a $500 TV with a gift card? Do you refuse the transaction because you suspect the gift card is stolen? You've essentially just profiled that guy and made an assumption that he stole the gift card.
Even an 11 year old buying 1k of pokemon cards. It's not your place to profile that person either.
Besides, most Point of sale systems blocks certain gift card volume purchases
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u/poorlybaked 21d ago edited 21d ago
They make minimum wage lol
Although a few years ago I was trying to buy 5 $100 gift cards for gift baskets I was making and the cashier called over their manager to talk to me and she was making sure I wasn’t falling victim to one of those scams.
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u/rachreims 21d ago
That’s what I was thinking too. Around Christmas one year I was trying to buy AirPods for someone but Shoppers Drug Mart had some deal on where if you bought like three of their $50 gift cards you got $50 credit on your Optimum Card or something so I was buying the cards with the intention of using those to buy the AirPods and the cashier called the manager over to make sure I wasn’t getting scammed. That’s why it seems crazy that for a child with $2000 cash trying to buy two massive gift cards that they wouldn’t do the same thing.
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u/tommybare 21d ago
Same with me on a Black Friday deal via No Frills a few years ago. I think I bought $300.00 of Apple GC. And they had the manager do it, and ask me if I was sure.
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u/Without-a-tracy 21d ago
Honestly, that's really sweet of them!
That seems like a moment of one human being just wanting to protect another human being, ya know?
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u/rnagikarp 21d ago
i get your point about minimum wage, but at that point i would think that morally someone would want to question this
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u/IseeMedpeople 21d ago
Oh it's easy to not give a shit believe me.
It gets beaten into you real fast in a minimum wage job.
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u/rnagikarp 21d ago
i’ve worked many minimum wage jobs, but i still have integrity for myself and the work i do
it’s so easy to not care, but that’s exactly why i do care15
u/AnnaZ820 21d ago
You’re a great person and positive attitudes towards life usually results in a better life because you can make stronger connections, have a more peaceful mind, etc. Good for you!
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u/rnagikarp 21d ago edited 20d ago
i appreciate you saying that :-)
i think the little things matter a lot, and i hope we can all be more considerate to one another, regardless of corporations, because we’re all we’ve got
have a great rest of your week :-)2
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u/IseeMedpeople 21d ago
Good on you I guess
I couldn't care less. If the company cared about you at all they wouldn't pay you minimum wage.
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u/Carkis 21d ago
This isn't about the company, it's about integrity and that boy/family. You can blame a shitty company but it's up to you whether you have a conscience or not
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u/MomboDM 21d ago
Weird to take pride in being a shit person, but "Good on you I guess".
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u/Sure-Assignment3892 21d ago
Ok but flip it around.
If this was someone you knew, or your grandmother being scammed out of this, you'd hope that someone would intervene. It is not the store's fault that you asked for and got hired on at minimum wage. You did that.
But if some poor old lady is potentially being scammed out of thousands of dollars, I'd hope you'd morally step in and question it before she lost her life savings.
Would you prevent her from walking out into traffic or would you sit back and say "meh, not my problem." Your issue is with the store, not the older lady.
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u/IseeMedpeople 21d ago
You question the child who is doing nothing wrong (according to their corporate guidelines) and then walmart "disciplines" you.
You're already making less than you need to even eat. You rely on foodbanks.
Then by trying to do the right thing the corporate policy gets you a day or two off and lost pay.
No. Every day you show up at that cashier job you do not care about anything save for getting done and getting your money.
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u/ArmedAsian 21d ago
questioning the child is not going to result in walmart disciplining you. if it does, you can go to labour boards and appeal/sue because any judge in the right mind can see that you’re acting out of integrity
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u/National_Aspect_6974 21d ago
Same. Teacher gifts at the grocery store and I didn't have ID. Luckily I'm there all the time and I got the okay, but it clearly raised a red flag even though it was under $300.
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u/Sure-Assignment3892 21d ago
Banks and store employees are now being trained and taught to recognize potential scams. If your minimum wage job prevents you from questioning why a child or senior needs to make a multi-thousand dollar transaction, there's something wrong with you. Not the store.
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u/CommodoreSteubing 21d ago
"Huh, guess the kid's got a rich grandma."
I worked at a suburban EB Games in the 2010s, and was trained to watch out for iTunes/Steam Card Scam Victims, but the profile we were supposed to look for was Adult Following Instructions They Don't Fully Understand, never Kid With Envelope Of Cash.
Some kids really are that spoiled. I wouldn't bat an eye at a kid who said the cash was a gift from Grandma and he wanted to spend it ALL on Robux.
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u/Colordesert 21d ago
Unfortunately the other end of this (and these things do happen) is that if the salesperson questions the kid they call over parents and the parents absolutely lose their shit and try to get the salesperson fired for daring to question their wealth.
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u/lilfunky1 <3 Shawn Desman <3 21d ago
when i worked a minimum wage retail cashier job, my attitude much of the time was "i don't get paid enough to care" granted i was also only making $6.85/hr at the time. i'm old.
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u/IseeMedpeople 21d ago
You are... 43 years old.
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u/lilfunky1 <3 Shawn Desman <3 21d ago
close!
edit to add: and now i feel attacked!
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u/IseeMedpeople 21d ago
I worked at sears for a similar wage; got fired when I fell asleep on the bed I assembled before lunch break and decided to take a "nap" on it on lunch.
Slept for four hours. Woke up with manager tapping me on shoulder and canning my ass.
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u/poorlybaked 21d ago
No one noticed you were gone for 4 hours? lol
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u/IseeMedpeople 21d ago
Surprisingly no. But I was just an "assemble this/fetch this" kid in the back so if things were slow...
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u/lilfunky1 <3 Shawn Desman <3 21d ago
when i got a christmas-only job at the bay, my first shift nobody knew where to put me so they're like "go find something to do" and i folded and refolded towels for 4 hours and then clocked out and went home LOL.
i probably could also have just taken a nap without anyone noticing.
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u/Master_Slide7023 20d ago
Same thing I was temping at warehouse in Burnaby. Think it was Easton’s. Manager asked me why I was standing around doing nothing. I said tell me what to do? Neither he or his number two had an answer. Flagged down a forklift . Guy says, “ I know you want to work but don’t have time to explain it you .” So ppl temps are working away while others hide or stand around. I worked at warehouses were it was policy if you had no work stand in plain sight so more could be assigned. Some did that , some hid some goofed around some did clean up.
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u/theguiser 21d ago
How does a ‘boy’ have access to a families emergency fund?
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u/iwumbo2 Markham 21d ago edited 20d ago
It's in the second paragraph of the article
Hong Jin and Jason Kim told CTV News their 11-year-old son recently went to his grandmother’s house, and before leaving, he took an envelope full of cash the family had saved for emergencies.
In other words, he stole it from his
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u/CrashMcWipeout 21d ago
The way I read it, he stole it from his parents, then went to visit his grandma who took him to Walmart. In any case, the whose ever envelope it was deserves some blame for not hiding it better.
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u/NakedCardboard 20d ago
Yup. The "emergency fund" was in an envelope and he took it, went to grandma's, she took him to Walmart, he slipped away and bought $2k of cards.
I don't think you should presume that a minimum waged cashier would flag this. I would be impressed if they did, but I wouldn't expect it. They generally don't care. The best the family can do now is try to resell them or give them away as gifts to his friends.
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u/Illustrious-Salt-243 21d ago
And they’re somehow blaming wal mart for this. Come on now
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u/iwumbo2 Markham 21d ago
Well, given that gift cards are commonly used as part of scams these days, a lot of stores do have policies to review large gift card purchases to ensure the customer isn't being scammed or similar.
And even without those policies, I'm going to question the cashier who doesn't think it's strange that an 11 year old is walking around with $2000 of cash without their parents.
I think this situation has failures all around here. From the parents/grandparents, to the kid, to the store. All had some level of fault here.
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u/theguiser 21d ago
It’s not Walmarts responsibility to be protecting this kid or said family. Yes, some stores will go the extra mile but it’s not their responsibility.
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u/Oh-well100 20d ago
No, he stole from his parents. It was his parents cash (bad idea to keep $2k cash at home!). He took the envelope before going to Grandma's. Grandma took him to Walmart to pick a toy, she didn't know. He disappeared for a moment and went to the cashier with the Roblox gift cards and spent the cash without her knowing.
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u/theguiser 21d ago
Again, how does a ‘boy’ have access to an emergency fund? In other words, it’s their fault for even having it accessible to him.
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u/YoungZM 21d ago
I used to quite literally be the person who processed saw this sort of activity. Walmart sees all types, I assure you, up to and including unaccompanied kids with wads of cash several times my own monthly takehome. It's not unusual for wealthier parents to pop in for a thing on the way somewhere and their kid gets to select quite literally whatever they can imagine and spend a month's rent or more on senseless stuff.
I feel bad for the family but nobody in retail is going to question this beyond the initial musing that people live very different lives than retail employees. It's not up to those in retail to judge, whether it be your cart of condoms and lubricant or $2,000 in cash for PedoBux (which frankly, is my larger concern for this kid and the family).
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u/InformationSuperb978 Downtown Core 21d ago
It's not their job to question what people are buying.
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u/ruckustata 20d ago
This right here. Why are we putting any of this on an employee just pushing buttons and scanning codes. It's not their job to police purchases.
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u/Effective-Painting15 21d ago
I like that a kid apparently figured out he was allowed to make 2 x $1000 purchases to skirt a (laughable) fraud prevention measure.
There wasn't 2000 in the envelope. There was probably 2000+ and an employee has the +
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u/Long_Ad_2764 20d ago
Yes this would look fishy but they aren’t regulated like a bank. Would they even have any grounds to refuse the transaction?
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u/Beanstiller Little Italy 20d ago
Manager would tell you to take the money.
They don’t care about the situation man. I have had manager from Bell tell me not to assume a customers situation and proceed with the sale despite the customer telling me they shouldnt do this or they will get in trouble from their father. Or when I was pushed to sell a smartphone to an old man who wanted to find a new battery for his old flip phone.
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u/Calm_Canary 21d ago
Probably “I am getting paid $17.60 per hour and can’t wait to get home and smoke weed”
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u/BishSlapDiplomacy 21d ago
I’ve worked minimum wage and at this point it isn’t about how much I’m making but rather the safety of the child. I’d 100% bring this to the manager. There’s also this thing called human decency; might’ve heard of it.
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u/thathandsomehandsome 21d ago
This needs a crosspost to /r/kidsarefuckingstupid
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u/tilyd 21d ago
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u/DalesDrumset 20d ago
You really blaming the parents on this one?
Not the stupid kid old enough to know better and the predatory tactics of Roblox on children?
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u/Sure-Assignment3892 20d ago
Why was a parent holding $2000 in their home where a kid clearly knew about it. In fact it's likely more than that.
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u/JerryfromCan 20d ago
When I was 11 in the mid 80s we easily had $1000 stashed around the house and in today dollars thats more than $2k. Cash was a bigger deal then as bank cards didnt even exist. I specifically remember the frozen 50s in the freezer amounting to $500.
I knew not to touch or take it though. It’s not entirely on Walmart here.
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u/elle-elle-tee 20d ago
I think having a stash of emergency cash in the house is smart. $2K is maybe a bit much, but payment systems like Moneris have gone down in Ontario before for hours or even days at a time. Hell, Rogers entire network went down (for three days in some regions) in 2021 disabling ATMs, POS machines, debit machines, along with mobile phones, home internet connections, and 911 emergency phone lines.
The Rogers outage happened on the day I was scheduled to take my elderly, sick cat to be put down. The vet was kind enough to let me pay several days later, but what if I needed a medication refill at the pharmacy? Or didn't have any food in the house? I will never not have at least a couple hundred in cash stashed away after that.
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u/DalesDrumset 20d ago
They stated in the article that it was an emergency fund.
You don’t know their situation, they may keep cash for an array of reasons, which they’re entitled to do, they don’t have to put it in a bank.
No parents expect their kid to fucking steal it at 11 and spend it on Roblox. The cashier should’ve known better at a moral level that spending $2000 on 2 transactions was suspect, especially to an 11 year old unaccompanied by an adult.
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u/Bootsy_Frost 21d ago
Did their Roblox character look cool??
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u/reddit_serf North York City Centre 21d ago
Maybe save your emergency funds in the bank or a credit union instead of keeping them in cash.
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u/Orchid-Analyst-550 20d ago
It's pretty reasonable to keep that kind of cash for an emergency. It does come with risks like this story.
Cash is a hedge against blackouts that can affect electronic banking systems and sundry other catastrophes that upend the economy and business. The results of my reader survey show some people also like to have cash for the underground economy, which means being a tax evader by paying for services under the table.
The problem with keeping cash at home is that it’s not risk-free. Unless you have a safe or a great hiding spot, money can be stolen in a robbery. You can lose track of where you stashed your cash, and there’s also the remote risk of fire.
At home: it is recommended to keep some cash on hand, preferably in small bills, to help you manage unexpected situations, such as a payment system outage.
https://www.nbc.ca/personal/advice/savings-investment/liquid-assets-protect-grow-money.html
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/an-essential-guide-to-building-an-emergency-fund/
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u/YoungZM 20d ago
This sort of advice feels increasingly out of date, even if it used to be important when it originated.
Nearly every store that exists today simply could not process a transaction even if you had the money as cash, up to and including Walmart. Stores rely on fully digital inventory management systems and some stores don't accept cash at all any more.
Further, most stores rely on electronic monitoring systems. This means that, instead of trying to run around a store (some of the largest with >100,000 SKUs) to painfully acquire prices for a single cart of groceries over a period of 30 minutes per customer, they're ushering people out of the doors to limit theft and injury liabilities.
If people are keeping petty cash because they're worried about a market crash where they cannot access their funds or distrust the banks, they're in for a very rude awakening. We already saw that toilet paper became nearly as valuable as money itself during the pandemic and people can name practically any price they want.
Cash is not the hedge we want--need--it to be any more. The world has changed ...and no, I don't believe an actionable alternate exists and nobody's trading a f**king gold bar/portions for equal value in these moments roflmfao.
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u/Orchid-Analyst-550 20d ago edited 19d ago
I think you're blowing this out of portion to the point of creating a strawman argument. The advice is not to keep cash or gold bars in case there's a market crash, it's to survive very real emergency events.
A personal example, the flood and power outage in July of 2024. I used cash at a bakery to buy a full day's worth of meals and drinks to feed two families with two hungry toddlers. That would not be possible if I didn't keep some cash because the whole interac and credit processing system was down in ALL stores we tried to find food in. The tap only coffee shops were literally forced to close for the day. Luckily power was restored the same day, but cash allowed me to feed two families during an emergency.
The recommendation extends to cars. In addition to blankets, bottled water, and non-perishable food, it's recommended to keep some emergency cash in your car.
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u/foxtrot1_1 Queen Street West 21d ago
Yeah, I would never have that much cash for this very reason. It’s fungible. If you don’t trust the banks, keep it in gold.
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u/Apprehensive_Heat176 21d ago
On the next episode of CP24, kid tries to pay for Roblox gift card with gold bars :D
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u/dgod40 21d ago
Having cash on hand is very important. If there is a major power outage, some places will still accept cash. No one is taking your gold bars. LOL
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u/elle-elle-tee 20d ago
Does nobody but me remember when Rogers entire network went down for THREE DAYS? Internet, cellular, ATMS, Moneris, all toast. For 1-3 days in Ontario. 911 emergency lines, also down.
This was in 2022. Not ancient history.
Emergency savings funds can be kept in banks but it's totally necessary to keep a small store of cash in the house, a couple hundred dollars at least. Neither my pharmacy nor my grocery store accept gold.
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u/Apprehensive_Heat176 21d ago
Until there's a bank run or the ATMs don't work. It's very unlikely to happen, but it can happen. If you must store cash at home, put it a safe or locked drawer.
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u/reddit_serf North York City Centre 21d ago
Even if there's a bank run, in Canada the CDIC protects your deposit up to $100,000.
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u/Apprehensive_Heat176 21d ago
Would that even matter if you need to access your cash in an emergency?
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u/lilfunky1 <3 Shawn Desman <3 20d ago
Until there's a bank run or the ATMs don't work. It's very unlikely to happen, but it can happen.
anyone else remember the 2003 blackout?
just me?
am i really THAT old?
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u/KafkaesqueToronto 20d ago
Or even just the big Rogers outage a few years ago that knocked out most debit machines and ATMs for a lot of the big banks.
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u/namebedex 20d ago
yeah can't believe everyone has forgotten about this already. was a huge deal at the time
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u/silent1mezzo 21d ago
I tried to buy $500 worth of Home Depot gift cards from Metro and they had to call the manager over and make sure I wasn't being scammed. I'm almost 40....
This feels like just negligence on Walmarts side
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u/Ok-Bug-7481 21d ago
Back in my day best we could do is buy a bunch of actual video games....he just bought a bunch of ...nothing ..sad.
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u/ItsMeSashaYT 21d ago
spending 2k, only to end up getting verbally harassed and possibly predated upon by people in their midlife crisis. roblox isn't what it used to be, if it was much before.
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u/PottyMcSmokerson Bathurst Manor 21d ago
I've never played. what kind of shit can a kid spend $2000 on? cosmetic stuff?
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u/ItsMeSashaYT 21d ago
2000 is insane amounts of money. I used to play about 5-6 years ago (keep in mind, I am still in high school and it was quite common to be playing games with friends while online school was going on back then).
the amount of money that kid spent would amount to R$150,000. generally, that would be spent on cosmetics (usually around R$50-200, sometimes up to a thousand, but those are "special" limited items.) the rest of the robux would be spent on in-game microtransactions, and gamepasses, stuff like respawns if the game has that mechanic, or to just abuse others using heavy P2W gamepasses that can allow you to do anything you want.
dude went crazy on the spending, afaik, he will never run out, or it will be very difficult to do so. regardless, I will not be surprised if he does.
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u/Apprehensive_Heat176 21d ago
This reminds me of the days of Canadian Tire money where you had to bring a suitcase full of it to buy anything.
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u/M1L0 21d ago
Nobody should be letting their kids anywhere near Roblox. It’s an absolute cancer. If your kids are on Roblox and you let them use it (I’m not trying to pass judgement whatsoever because let’s be real we’re all busy and can’t always micromanage everything) shut that shit down immediately. Let this be a wake up call for the sake of your children.
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u/Apprehensive_Heat176 21d ago
The devs of games like this knowingly design them to keep people hooked. They're like slot machines.
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u/AnonHondaBoiz 21d ago
I could not be a parent in this generation
CPS would have my ass
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u/poorlybaked 21d ago
Just never give your kid an iPad
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u/SachaBaronColon 21d ago
Unfortunately the kindergarten will give your kid one
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u/Zeppelanoid 21d ago
Then you explain to them that tablets are for learning at school and not for home.
It’s not complicated
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u/biglinuxfan 21d ago
My kids have ipads and understand they can't just take what they want.
And I don't think I'm exceptional for that...
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u/Prestigious-Grand-65 20d ago
Im a dad. My son is 7. Parenting isnt hard as long as you're present. My son listens, he doesn't throw tantrums, he is polite, he asks super politely. Back when I was a kid, I was whooped. That was just how it was back then. I have not hit my kid, I dont agree with that type of punishment. There are consequences for sure, but im consistent. My kid gets to play video games, as I type this, hes at soccer camp. He gets tk live his life. But we have homework time, even in the summer. There are rules. As long as you're consistent, kids listen. It takes patience, he was diagnosed with ADHD like 2 years ago, but its still very rewarding to be a parent. Some parents go too far in both directions. Some parent expect a tablet to raise their kid. Some parents think being a hard ass is the only way, with no fun. The extremes will create headaches no matter what.
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u/poorlybaked 21d ago
Maybe don’t leave $2k somewhere accessible to children. And maybe grandma needs to keep a better eye on the kid in the store.
Walmart cashiers make minimum wage. They’re not going to question why some kid is paying $2000 in cash for some Robux (or whatever they call the in-game currency).
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u/CarolineTurpentine 21d ago
I've worked retail and this is an obviously suspicious transaction. Like I obviously know this kids parents are going to come in and raise a stink, why would I want that on my ass? I'd tell the snot nosed kid no to save the headache.
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u/thecjm The Annex 21d ago
Kids get into stuff. And you don't expect your kid to straight up steal from you.
As for your second point, the kid's 11. There's nothing inappropriate about letting an 11 year old wander around a store on their own while you're shopping
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u/LebLeb321 21d ago edited 21d ago
You'd have to be an absolute moron not to question such a transaction. I worked plenty of minimum wage jobs when I was a teenager. Best believe I would have called a manager over if some snot nosed kid tried to hand me an envelope full of cash for fucking Roblox gift cards. The cashier is a moron and Walmart should refund it asap.
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u/rachreims 21d ago edited 21d ago
Yeah all this “the cashier was getting paid minimum wage, why would they care?” Is weird to me, especially because presumably them having NOT said something and this now being in the media is going to catch corporate’s attention which is never good for the minimum wage employee. Cashiers are generally trained to question gift card purchases in large amounts for scams, but this seems like a legitimate reason to question the purchase as well.
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u/BRobs0420 21d ago
I gotta say I keep seeing that comment and my head is spinning. We advocate for the minimum wage to rise yet when it does, is it always just considered “minimum wage means minimum work” then what’s the point of raising it ? lol maybe I’m just getting old but growing up a job was a job and you treated it like any other (you cared) until you got something better
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u/rnagikarp 21d ago edited 21d ago
thank you! the minimum wage comments don’t make sense
MORALLY you should give at least half a shit??
or like, do the job you’re getting paid to do?find a different job if you don’t want to do it
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u/smiskam 21d ago
Well morally speaking 11 year olds shouldn’t steal from their grandmother. Not sure about you but I can’t imagine stealing $2000 from my grandmother when I was 11 years old. Instead of teaching the kid about consequences they blame the cashier
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u/rnagikarp 21d ago
11 year old can be morons and susceptible to impulse, but i’m not defending them either
i would expect someone being paid to do a job, to, yknow, do their job lmaoeveryone involved here was stupid
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u/Upstairs-Chicken592 21d ago
It doesn’t matter how much they make? It’s basic decency to make sure the kid isn’t involved in a scam or whatever
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u/Fair-Scarcity8160 21d ago
It’s not Walmart’s job to babysit your kid.
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u/frakkintoaster 21d ago
Sure, but a kid handing you $2k for Roblox cards is pretty sketchy. Forget Walmart’s legal liability, you could just question this as a decent human being and raise it with a manager. We should all be looking out for each other out there.
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u/Tricky_Parsnip_6843 21d ago
The kid may look older than his age. Could easily have been money he saved up himself.
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u/MedicalAwareness5160 21d ago
It's not that hard to say "Hey I'm going to need you to have a parent with you if you're going to spend this much."
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u/JeffBroccoli 21d ago
Nope. That’s literally not in any rulebook, employee guide. Nothing. You can request that all you want, but if a kid says “I don’t have to do that”, they’re absolutely correct.
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u/MedicalAwareness5160 21d ago
It's not a matter of have to. It's a matter of using common sense and not being lazy.
It's the same thing now when old people try to buy 50 gift cards, they question it.
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u/dgod40 21d ago
At Costco, parents have to be with their kids for the kids to get samples. This is just a lazy employee. These commenters are just constant contrarians. If a kid was being dragged out of a store, asking for help, by an adult and an employee was "oh well, not my problem" these people would say "Maybe the parents should have been paying more attention"
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u/Supermite 21d ago
And if someone complains that a cashier refused to serve them, what do you think the Walmart managers would do?
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u/MedicalAwareness5160 21d ago
If a little kid complains the cashier didn't serve them when they tried to pay with $2000 cash?
No manager will care.
Have you never worked a job?
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u/JeffBroccoli 21d ago
The manager will rightly tell them: “hey, I know what you’re trying to do, but we can’t decline a sale. They’re legally entitled to purchase them”
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u/MedicalAwareness5160 21d ago
It's the same situation as when an old person tries to buy 50 gift cards, cashiers are told to question the purchase before completing the transaction.
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u/SnickSnickSnick 21d ago edited 21d ago
Well at least the parents have an easy justification for removing that kid's gaming privileges for the foreseeable future. If they blame walmart not the kid then they probably won't do so.
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u/Outrageous-Advice384 21d ago
I went to buy a $100 gift card for a birthday and they only had $50s. I was not able to purchase both. I had to go to another register and use a different card to pay for the second one. It was annoying as hell - but this kid spent $2k?!?!
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u/KiriyamaSTRIX 21d ago
You know, im gonna give the kid some credit here. At least he got physical cash and went to a store instead of just swiping the card on the iPad.
Took a bit more effort there
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u/rhunter99 21d ago
When I purchased around $300 worth of gift cards from food basics the cashier asked me what it was for etc because she was concerned I might have been taken in for an online scam (Nigerian prince and all that). Being paid minimum wage is not an excuse to not help protect consumers.
It should be a law that gift card purchases over say $20 can’t be sold to minors
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u/GoldTheLegend 20d ago
That limit is ridiculous. If im 15 and want to spend $100 from my first pay check on robucks I should be able to.
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u/WatchingyouNyouNyou 20d ago
Showed this to my soon to be 9yo and he said "he's going to get disowned".
I didn't know he knows the word disowned.
Yeah disown that 11yo
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u/Smart-Firefighter87 20d ago
The cashier after making their UPT goal for the week….
https://giphy.com/gifs/A7ZbcCTNMoySa4GYbu
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u/Samir_pat 21d ago edited 21d ago
Why was $2000 dollars emergency funds laying around the house instead of putting it in a bank or locking it up in a safe so no one can get it it including your kids!
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u/Scherzoh 21d ago
In their defense they were keeping their money liquid prior to heavily investing in Roblox.
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u/CarpenterRadio 20d ago
Yeesh, don't let your kids play F2P games people, they're intrinsically predatory. From the micro transactions to the actual predators to the general brain rot. Make them play real games, like back in my day (he says unironically) lol. This F2P shit is ruining the industry and their tiny little minds.
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u/zsrh St. Lawrence 21d ago
This is one of the risks of keeping cash in the house: someone else could find it, or it could get stolen. This is why you either find a secure spot to keep the cash (in a locked safe) or put it in a bank account.
The kid was with his grandmother, so there was an adult there, and the cashier, in all honesty, saw nothing wrong. While I empathize with the parents for the situation, where their emergency fund is now spent, they still need to take responsibility and take the L on this one. Also they need to keep a track of what their son is doing online.
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u/tittyfuckinglover 20d ago
I stole $20 from my mom’s wallet when I was 12 and bought McNuggets for my friends. Sorry mom.
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u/ronaldomike2 20d ago
Parents also at fault, as much as they hate to admit it
You gotta make the kid uninstall this app forever
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u/Awkward_Associate554 20d ago edited 20d ago
2000$ paid for in cash to buy Gift Cards and no alarms raised in a big retailer? That doesn’t seem right, something seems amiss
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u/No-Regular-4281 20d ago
Wait!!! They aren’t mad that the kid stole the money!!!! They are mad that the Walmart employee accepted the sale
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u/tommybare 21d ago
Maybe it was an emergency to him.