How Do my Teenage kids (who dont have credit cards) Purchase Apps

[cjf1000]

I have three teenage kids who would love to buy apps for their phones and I plan to get them Android tablets for Xmas. However, they don't have credit cards and I do not want to link their accounts to my card with unlimited access.

I would like to gift them $30 credit to their account for them to purchase whatever apps they want, and am happy to do that as a one off payment from my credit card, but I don't want my card to stay attached to their accounts.

I can see no obvious way of doing that. I believe in the US there are now Google Play gift cards but I am in the UK and we do not have them. I thought about the Amazon store as they have gift cards, but looking at the Amazon page they would need an Amazon account and to open the account they need to specify a credit card.

For other tablets this is so easy - every shop in town sells their gift cards but it seems to be difficult for Android. Net result is less Android apps sold.

Hopefully I have missed something and someone can advise on an easy way for my kids to purchase apps and allow me to transfer or gift them some credit.

Many thanks

 

[Sableye]

Re: How Do my Teenage kids (without credit cards) Purchase Apps

On my phone I able too bill t-mobile and pay with pay as you go credit. Is there nothing like that for tablets?

 

[cjf1000]

Re: How Do my Teenage kids (without credit cards) Purchase Apps

Thanks for the reply - I think you may be able to do that with some UK carrier contracts but their tablets are Wifi only, and you can't do it with their phone contracts

 

[Mungus8888]

Maybe they will have to be responsible, and just not buy any until they can afford it themselves.

 

[MobileMadness002]

In Canada here. So this may not be an option. I use a prepaid credit card because of some bad financial choices, that requires me to "Add" money to it prior to making purchases. Ask your bank if they have that option. If so see if they have a limit to the number of unique cards that can be added to your financial account.

 

[Mooncatt]

Instead of a credit card, is it possible to set them up with debit cards with their own bank accounts? Or maybe a second account in your name for them that they put money into. Google would take debit card info just like a credit card, and helps the kids be more responsible with the money. If not, then a pre paid card would be an option i think, but watch out for the fees.

And of course there are likely free alternative apps for them to consider instead of paid ones.

 

[arcoms]

If you live in the US, the best option would be tracking down Google Play gift cards. I've seen them at places like Target, Walmart and Toys R Us. They're hard to find but pretty much address the concern you've got.

Sorry. Just read the rest of your post. Another option would be having them create a wish list and you could purchase the apps/books/movies through the web store, and once you are done you could try to remove the card from the account.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[ANDROGUY]

Just go to walmart,or some other stores,they have like google play "gift cards" that you can buy...already preloaded with x amount of $s...safest way i know....just saw one yesterday i think at foodloin....." I know i said wm....sorry"

sent from 1soldier

 

[ANDROGUY]

Hard call there...i was gonna say go with the gift cards too...but that got shot down..

sent from 1soldier

 

[cjf1000]

Just found this on the Google Web site

Note: You may only purchase Google Play credit to add to your own Google Play balance - at this time, it is not possible, aside from purchasing a physical Google Play gift card from a retail store, to add to another user?s Google Play balance as a gift. (Google Play gift cards and your Google Play balance - Google Play Help).


Seems a little bizarre to me in this day an age that I can't credit someone's Google account either directly or via a voucher of some kind as a gift (and gift cards are not available here in the UK). This cannot possibly be good for the casual app purchaser and will frustrate younger user, and must have an impact on sales if the only option for purchasing $1 products is to link credit cards to accounts.

Despite one or two of the comments above, it doesn't make sense to me to tie credit cards to 13 and 14 year teenager old accounts - when there should be easy options as the main competitor has shown. Even if I can't buy gift cards in the shops, it should be trivial to gift money to an account via some mechanism as a Christmas or birthday present.

I know from my own personal experience with rival products that if someone gives a ?15 or ?25 gift card then it gets spent very quickly on things the user didn't know they wanted until the credit was sitting there, and which means the developers in turn sell far more and helps accelerate the app eco system.

I still think there must be a simple answer - but it shouldn't be this difficult to find.

 

[Xopher]

Not sure about in other countries, but here in the US, you can go to Target and get a $25, $50, or $100 American Express gift card. It's not tied to any account and works just like a credit card. I think the only restriction I've seen is that the US card can only buy apps from US developers - it'll fail the transaction if the developer is from a different country.