Here’s a thought provoking post from dad of 2 Ben. Have you childproofed your PC?

They say you should never leave a computer unlocked and unattended. Similarly, you should always make sure you know what your kids are doing when they’re online. A seven year-old girl proved this to be the case after managing to spend £250 online in less than an hour whilst playing a popular Facebook game.

Megan Fox, from Birmingham, was playing ‘Petville’, which gives users the option of buying clothing for a virtual pet. Sat next to her father – Matthew – Megan bought the items one by one through PayPal. It was only when Matthew checked his emails that he found four receipts totalling $400.

He filed a complaint with PayPal, who refused a refund on the basis that Megan was within the Fox household at the time, and the purchases do not class as unauthorised transactions. Matthew and his wife Dawn have expressed their outrage that Megan was not asked to confirm any details, stating that if PayPal had done so, she and Matthew would have realised what was happening.

Readers of the Daily Mail are divided in their opinions on this unfortunate incident. “I think the parent should be fined an extra £250 for wasting peoples’ time with this story.” said one. Another reader agreed: “If I did something so daft I would keep quiet about it and put it down to experience, instead of going for 15 minutes of fame.”

Others were more sympathetic. “Lots of ‘holier than thou’ types on here,” said Chris, from Southampton. “I’m sure that they all 100% supervise their kids on the internet…NOT.” Rose, from Tehran, felt the blame lay not with the Fox family, but with Facebook: “Facebook has made up their software to develop addictive tendencies to children…the weakness of children is exploited by them.”

A flawed argument, perhaps, as the Petville application is created by an external company named Zynga; but this story does raise the debate about how much control a parent should have over their child’s use of the Internet, and how they should be more diligent in closing down potentially costly websites.

Megan’s story is not the first, and it won’t be the last. In 2009, a three year-old girl in New Zealand placed the winning bid on what she thought was a toy model whilst browsing the auction site TradeMe. What she had actually purchased was a full-sized construction digger, after beating her competitors with a final bid of NZ$20,000 (£9,600).

The majority of the blame for both of these instances falls on the parents of the children involved. Zynga, through Facebook, are perfectly within their rights to charge for virtual items – this is, of course, nothing new; for example, the buying and selling of land in the virtual world known as Second Life is carried out using real money, with ‘private islands’ selling for over $1,500. Similarly, TradeMe cannot be held accountable if a child purchases a piece of heavy machinery: the bid was made and accepted – the transaction is valid.

The onus, therefore, is on parents to be vigilant about which websites their children have access to, and which services they leave themselves logged into when they leave their keyboard exposed to inquisitive fingers. In the case of young Megan, her father had failed to log out of PayPal, and so she had easy access to cash. Sarah Quinlan – the unfortunate mum from New Zealand – had left her computer for just a few moments, but had not logged out of TradeMe.

So parents, take note: when you leave your desk to make a cup of tea, remember to log out of any websites that could prove costly. Otherwise, you may return to find you are the proud owner of an Aston Martin, perhaps, or a 300-acre estate in the Cotswolds.

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