[reader_mode]

>But 30, 20, even 10 years ago (first iPad was released 10 years ago!) you couldn’t accidentally buy digital rubbish.

That's not true - I clearly remember those TV telenovelas arround here having a paid line where you could get a summary of next episode and the number advertised during the show. The only people I ever heard about calling the service was kids racking up parents phone bills.

[Tainnor]

When I was a kid I found a very sketchy game on the teletext where you had to repeatedly call some phone line. My parents ended up with a 600 bucks phone bill.

I also repeatedly fell for weird "order this set of dinosaur cards for free (but then it's an ongoing subscription)" kinds of scams.

All of that stuff was annoying. And my parents ended up taking appropriate measures (blocking paid phone numbers, or just talking to me, for example). Nobody died because of it.

Kids have always been good targets for scams. Nothing new under the sun.

[user5994461]

You were lucky that you parents were well off. There are many families what live paycheck to paycheck and wouldn't be able to feed the children after they lost 600 bucks in a phone scam.

[Tainnor]

sure, that's a valid point (although, in the worst case, we do have social security nets over here). the point is more that kids falling for scams is nothing new.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I’ve seen those dodgy subscription services, but never in relation to anything I was actually interested in as a kid. Maybe they were not as prevalent where I grew up.

But now, everyone with an iPad or smartphone is a target. That’s new.