A 12-year-old British boy racked up more than $1,300 on his mother's credit card so he could buy coins in the Facebook game FarmVille, the Guardian reports.
Now his mother is warning parents everywhere that social networking games aren't as harmless as they appear.
FarmVille is one of Facebook's most popular applications with 82.4 million users.
Users are given virtual coins to start a farm, and they can then trade in their crops for more coins.
But for the less patient users, FarmVille allows people to buy extra coins with real money.
Zynga, the makers of FarmVille, have refused to refund the cash because the boy lives in his mother's house.
Facebook has disabled his account because children under 13 aren't permitted on the social networking site.
The woman, who remains unnamed, blames her son for the situation, but thinks the social networking sites should be more responsible.
"I do think they need to shoulder some responsibility in this business and put systems in place to stop this happening again. The fact that he was using a card in a different name should bring up some sort of security and the online secure payment filter seems to be bypassed for Facebook payments,² she told the Guardian.
