GoKawiil
Tech News
A 9-year-old known online as MightyMikePLays67 racked up $118,000 in YouTube ad charges on his father's company credit card while promoting his Minecraft channel. His father Dave lost his job as a result and must repay the bill within 30 days, prompting the family to consider selling their home.
A man identified as Dave says his 9-year-old son unknowingly spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns promoting his Minecraft and Roblox gameplay videos over roughly three weeks. The charges went through a company credit card Dave had saved to a Google account shared with his son, after he had shown the boy how to run a small $20 promotion. Some of the promoted videos gained hundreds of thousands of views before finance staff flagged the spending.
A YouTube ad disguised as an iPhone low-storage system alert has been repeatedly reported by users but cleared by Google, which says it doesn't violate ad policy. When the author ran the same ad through Google's own Gemini AI, it flagged the ad as deceptive for imitating system UI and making unreliable claims, contradicting the human review team's verdict.