It's been about a month since the incident. Things have calmed down at home and we've had many conversations with our son about why he did what he did. The answer to us is now clear — he became addicted to the game, spending $100 was as easy as clicking a button, there were no barriers, and it didn't feel like real money even though it had a dollar sign on the screen. My wife and I accept our responsibility in this. We should have paid much closer attention to his video gaming, and my son accepts his responsibility and punishment...

So these are my questions to Microsoft on behalf of the thousands and thousands of parents who have fallen into this same situation (you can see online that this isn't a rare occurrence and Microsoft employs its many escalation analysts for a reason).

With all the brilliance of your engineers and sophisticated systems to protect data how hard could it be to put a realistic ceiling on what can be spent on in-app purchases before the credit card details and security code need to be re-entered? Most apple –iTunes purchases need a password to be re-entered for each new purchase.

How many users legitimately spend thousands of dollars on in-app purchases and just how much usage would it actually take for you to flag this as unusual behavior and require confirmation that the purchase is legitimate? Banks and credit card companies regularly do this — there can’t be many reasons you don’t.

Of course, I know the answer to these questions really. I live in the real world. Microsoft calculates that actually taking a responsible position that protects and safeguards its customers would be too much of a dent to its profits. It is more profitable to employ escalation analysts to earn their keep by rejecting a good percentage of claims. It will tell you that this is all about user convenience. It will tell you there are all sorts of parental controls available but back in the real world we all know that parents often don’t have the time or expertise to use these properly. If Microsoft wanted to spare thousands of parents from frustration, anger and sometimes, serious financial consequences then it could find a hundred ways to do it. It has just chosen not to. Microsoft made a decision based on profit maximization and adhering to the minimum legal requirements. If there’s a lawyer out there that wants to start a class-action against Microsoft and force them into compensation and adopting a better policy I’ll happily sign up. But for now I’ve spent nearly an hour on Saturday morning writing this blog and have too much else to do.