Boy, 12, gets €100k bill from Google after confusing Adwords with Adsense A child in Spain has received a bill of €100,000 from Google after confusing its AdWords and AdSense services. José Javier, 12, had signed up for Google's AdWords programme in order to make money from advertisements placed alongside YouTube videos of his band, the Torrevieja llamada Los Salerosos – en inglés, the Torrevieja …
Yeah. It's an absolute pain. I'm sure for people who are using Google's ad backend regularly, it's becomes clear, but for someone who just has a couple of monetised vids, and places an ad or two it's an absolute mess. And I'm used to dealing with complex systems.
It's like they've made no effort to distinguish sections relating to ads you host and ads you're paying for. *Never the twain should meet!*
"By early September the family was being billed by Google, receiving charges which reportedly rose quickly from an initial €15 to €19,700.
Seems pretty clear, we're talking about multiple billings, so Google hasn't received payment for the latest 100k one, but it did receive money for earlier ones.
Right, 78000, not 100000, but that seems to be what they meant by "not only hasn't received payment from the family, but will proceed to cancel the outstanding balance on its Adwords service."
Well, not saying anything yet about refunding the money already paid, hopefully that's in the works already.
"By early September the family was being billed by Google, receiving charges which reportedly rose quickly from an initial €15 to €19,700.
Didn't a parent notice the initial billings and look into it? I'd think by the time the billings were a few hundred euros they'd inquire why this money was being spent.
It's so unclear that I think the person who wrote this article ran the original El País article through Google Translate rather than ask someone who speaks Spanish to give him the gist. I saw the original article a couple of days ago and was wondering whether anyone outside Spain would pick it up; I can spot a few errors in this one.
(1) The band's name is just Los Salerosos, and it doesn't mean The Saltshakers. I would translate it something like The Fun Guys.
(2) It's not that they planned to get rich and buy a mansion: they planned to buy musical instruments, and if they got rich to buy a mansion.
(3) The bank account wasn't a family account. It was José Javier's own savings account, which was intended to pay for, among other things, driving lessons in the future.
(4) It's not that the account went 2000€ into debt, but that the account only had 2000€ in it to start with. The bank notified the parents after receiving (and this isn't entirely clear to me in the original Spanish) either bills totalling 19700€ or a bill for 19700€. (Fairly literal translation: "At the start of September the charges from Google began to arrive, and increased exponentially from some 15 euros, at the start, until reaching 19,700.")
(5) The boy's father isn't quoted at any point. It was his mother who is quoted as saying, among other things, that he didn't understand the consequences.
Not saying it isn't correct what has been translated above, but how do you know what he is saying *is* correct if you relied on translation tools to write the articles in the first place. What he's put isn't so much as a correction as a complete article pretty much ready made for you! Plus I doubt he'd ever imagine you'd use an unverified source since he could in theory be telling you anything.
Correct. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a teenager is a person aged between 13 and 19 years. Which does puzzle me. Why 13? You'd think it'd be any age that is expressed as a two-digit number starting with "1" because it's derived from "ten" in some way or other.
"Etymology - the discipline that conclusively proves that your intuitive explanation is thorougly wrong." -- Harry Rowohlt
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"@GKraut - Re: "realizes..." - Please upgrade to the UK Dictionary."
If you are going to snark at least be accurate. either use is perfectly acceptable in written English. (although one shouldn't mix within the same written piece) The -ize ending commonly associated as being of American English is in fact of British origin and was the way we used to spell all -ize type words. At some point this began to be replaced with the -ise type ending because as we all know language evolves; so in actual fact the Americans are using a purer form of written English than we ourselves do.
No charge, you're welcome.
Yeah, I kinda only realized it when my daughter neared her own transformation into Ms. Dracula. I had heard "teen" so much that the etymology for it went right past my head. Teen is also a quite colloquial term, hardly the stuff that your lit and grammar classes spend time on.
Jeez, from the downvotes you'd think the poor guy had commented positively on Windows Teen.
Thats because we used to have a base 12 number system and then someone decided we should move to a base ten system. Hence there are distinct words for 1 to 12 and then we move onto teens, thirteen, fourteen, <number>teen etc.. You will see the same in german.
It also explains why there are twelve months in a year, 24 hours in a day etc etc etc
it doesn't explain why there are 14lbs in a stone though :(
"Thats because we used to have a base 12 number system and then someone decided we should move to a base ten system. Hence there are distinct words for 1 to 12 and then we move onto teens, thirteen, fourteen, <number>teen etc.. You will see the same in german."
We never had a base 12 number system. The Babylonians used base 10 and also base 60. The Romans used twelfths in fractions, but Western Europeans have never in history used base 12 for actual counting, only time.English and German have words up to 12, Spanish up to 15, French up to 16.
"http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/11/15/3364432.htm"
Was that intended to support or refute my post? In that it said that we measure time in twelves because of the Babylonians, who used base 10 for counting but then grouped larger numbers into 60s. In my post I said that the Babylonians used base 10 and also base 60. I am not sure what you wanted to say, especially since you said nothing.
Oh, and add to my list of other cultures don't go up to twelve, Slavonic languages such as Russian start with one-teen.
"No. There used to be 13 Moon-ths in a year but various Roman emperors stole days from one of them to increase their favourites until it disappeared completely."
Hang on! Are you saying the Romans are stealing a month of my life from me every fricken` year?
So THAT'S what the Romans did for us! Bastards!
Count to 12 using the finger bones of one hand - touching each with the thumb of the same hand.
I was originally told this as something from Papua New Guinea, but a quick search has it going all the way back to Babylon.
Personally, i find it useful to count to 14 by including the thumb joints as well - just something to work through a 2 week swing at work.
This brings another interesting question, though: bank account details should not be enough to take money from it. There should also be a signed form sent to the bank allowing it. Though it's not rare that nowadays, banks let unauthorized withdrawals go through if they come from reputable sources, assuming the signed form is in the mail. They're still engaging their responsibility when they do that, though.
>if they come from reputable sources
Best laugh of the week, the thought of Google being considered a reputable source.
Spanish banks do not like to let go of money. From my experience there must be a signed mandate. One of the banks I've used even needed a code and then a PIN sent via SMS to transfer money between my current and savings account at same branch.
Any bad experience you can think of with a UK bank would be ten times worse with a Spanish one.
"Are you saying that, growing up as a kid, your parents were keeping things like bank statements safely locked in the family vault because god forbid if the kids got to see those and steal the bank account #?"
My parents kept bank statements and payslips well hidden, though I have no idea why.
According to the BBC article, the kid had a savings account set up in his name. This was the account used, not the "family" account.
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Actually, many countries around the world and, surprisingly, in Europe have the age of criminal responsibility under 12. I would wonder whether that definition extended to the age of financial responsibility too as an under-12 could be held liable for financial misdemeanors. Spain isn't one of them but it's an interesting question if you're defrauded by an 11-year-old Belgian hacker or a 9-year-old Maltese business tycoon ...
In England, child (a "minor" I think in legal terms) can enter into contract from age of 7. No surprise if you think about buying sweets from corner shop.
That said the law presupposes that the child still isn't capable of understanding the whys and wherefores of the contract and gives benefit of doubt to the child. eg child can 'void' the contract at any time for any reason.
Technically, if the kid lied and said he was the account holder and supplied valid details, isn't he stealing from his parents and wouldn't the dispute be between them rather than involving Google?
I agree with them writing off the debt, but surely that's TECHNICALLY the situation?
I don't get how someone can set up an AdWords campaign without realising they are paying for adverts.
The kid would have had to enter the details of the adverts he wanted to show before he'd have been charged for anything. These are two totally different things. Everything about the AdWords interface screams "you are placing an advert" not "please pay me to show adverts".
Perhaps I'm being a tad cynical but this sounds more like the 12 year old wanted to advertise his band, it cost way more than he thought it would, so he goes with the convenient excuse that he was "confused". He wouldn't be the first 12 year old to think something sounded like a good plan only for it to get out of hand.
I was about to reply with a similar thing.
The names are indeed very confusing, and I've occasionally ended up on the wrong one, but once inside they are vastly different.
He would have had to create and upload an advert before he could do anything, surely this would be a massive giveaway? he would then have had to create a campaign, and set a budget amount, again another giveaway.
This
Adwords is fairly hard to do well but it's pretty clear what you are doing even if you are doing it very badly.
Anyway, good for Google. They get a lot of well deserved flack but as a recipient of a $40K a month Google grant to spend on adwords for more than one organisation I tend to have a bit of a soft spot for this division of Google,
Never underestimate the stupidity of adults let alone a 12 year old child. I know a few grown ups that this would probably confuse.
I think kid would have to be extremely amazingly stupid, not just "confused", based on how AdWords works.
I just double-checked, and when you go to AdWords, it says "Get your ad on Google today".
Let me repeat, "Get YOUR AD on Google today"
"I think kid would have to be extremely amazingly stupid, not just "confused", based on how AdWords works.
I just double-checked, and when you go to AdWords, it says "Get your ad on Google today".
Let me repeat, "Get YOUR AD on Google today""
Is that what it says in Spanish? Because, you know, he is.
"He wouldn't be the first 12 year old to think something sounded like a good plan only for it to get out of hand."
Some children's books and entire Hollywood movies are based on the premise of some whacky 12-year-old (or a whole group of them) being confused about some goddamned thing, with ensuing predictable hijinks.
The moment I heard about I thought "There is NO WAY on God Green Earth that Google would have allowed an account to be setup WITHOUT a credit card or credit facility available."
Or, to put it another way, I challenge any commentard to set up an account, without a credit facility and then run up such an enormous bill.
Google would take the money from the credit provider, leaving the card/account holder to stump up.
But, it has distracted the less discerning of us from learning whatever horrors Theresa May has planned for the rest of us ...
"Or, to put it another way, I challenge any commentard to set up an account, without a credit facility and then run up such an enormous bill."
A worthless challenge unless you agree to pay the enormous bill if you lose.
Google would take the money from the credit provider, leaving the card/account holder to stump up."
Credit doesn't work the same way in all countries. Where I live it's perfectly possible to live a normal life without a credit card.
And are of an optimistic nature.
A girl I worked with entered a radio competition a while back. All she had to do was guess the price of a guitar. The guy on the telephone was really helpful, and hinted that it was "more than £900". She said £1200.
She got a call back later that day to say she'd won the guitar. And to double check that she realised it was a charity auction...
So you are saying your kids have never ever had access to your wallet within which your debit card clearly proclaims your bank details? Or you have never left a bank statement (pay slip etc) on the side between opening the letter and filing it? Presuamably your filing system is inside a locked safe that the kids can't get into? Whilst most kids won't be interested enough to go and find out the details it is extremely hard to prevent them from discovering it if they are so interested. The parenting issue of course would not be running your house like the CIA but educating your children between right and wrong, though if the child thinks they are doing something good and right (getting free money) then mistakes will happen.
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