A mum is urging parents to be careful this Christmas after her son racked up a £365 bill on a tablet computer in just 24 hours.

Zoe Morris, 37, of Little Glovers, Sittingbourne, bought her son a Samsung Galaxy tablet for his birthday.

Passwords and age locks were put in place on the tablet before giving it to seven-year-old Louis.

But somehow he managed to bypass the security checks and made £365 worth of in-app purchases.

Zoe said: “Initially, we thought it was fraud.

"We didn’t realise he’d be able to do that. When we came to the conclusion it was him, we were obviously absolutely devastated. It’s such a waste of money."

It was only discovered what had been happening when the bank rang to question the suspicious activity on the account.

“Being seven years old, he didn’t realise quite what he was doing.

"You just have a little button that says buy. You just keep pressing it. You’re not handing over any money as such. He just wasn’t aware it was clocking up.

“You have to be really, really careful. It was so easy for him to do it even though we thought we’d done everything correctly.”

Louis made 55 individual purchases of between £1.27 and £15.98 in 24 hours from the Google Play Store and his mum is now trying to get the money back.

Zoe said: “We’ve contacted Google, but it’s a long-winded process trying to get your money back.

"You just have a little button that says buy. You just keep pressing it. You’re not handing over any money as such. He just wasn’t aware it was clocking up" - mum Zoe Morris

“For each claim form you have to do it for each individual purchase. For each purchase there’s a 32 digit number which you have to submit every time you claim.

"We’re still waiting for a response from Google. It’s just a waiting game."

She urged parents buying a tablet for a youngster at Christmas to be more aware of what they're doing.

She added: "You think you’re being kind to your child giving them these things but actually you need to be a bit more responsible and supervise what they are doing.

“It’s a waste of money, you’re not actually getting anything.

“All it takes is one mistake and you end up with a bill like I did.”

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