Four children spent nearly £550 in three weeks buying player packs to play the Fifa football video game online on the family's Nintendo Switch console.
In Fifa, special players can be bought in packs, but the contents are only revealed after payment is completed.
The children's father, Thomas Carter, had bought them a single pack for around £8, and had not realised they had seen how he made the purchase.
The Switch has now been confiscated "indefinitely", Mr Carter said.
Nintendo has agreed to a full refund and has removed the purchased players.
While Fifa is published and sold by Electronic Arts, the payments had been made via the family's Nintendo account.
Nintendo did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr Carter, from Hampshire, admits that he did not take full precautions to limit access to his Nintendo account: he did not use a unique Pin number and the emailed receipts were sent to an old email address with a full inbox.
"I just never thought [the children] would do it," he said.
Image copyrightTHOMAS CARTERHe and his wife only realised what had happened when their card was declined elsewhere because their bank account was empty.
Fifa 19 has been certified as suitable for players from the age of three.
Mr Carter said his children, who are all under the age of 10, felt very remorseful and had not understood the impact of what they were doing.
However, he also said he felt that the in-game concept of buying player packs without knowing what was inside them was unethical.
"You pay £40 for the game, which is a lot of money in itself, but then the only way to get a great team is essentially by gambling," he said, referring to online play.
"They spent £550 and they still never got their favourite player, Lionel Messi."
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESVideo games publisher EA, which owns Fifa, declined to comment but provided a link to its guidelines on controlling in-game purchases - this varies depending on the platform or console being used.
Some devices are more complicated than others, here's a quick (and not exhaustive) guide:
In 2018 the games news website Eurogamer published an interview with an adult Fifa player who discovered he had spent $10,000 (£8,000) in two years,after he issued EA with a Freedom of Information request.
He told the site it was "just not worth it".
Image copyrightEAA new report issued by the organisation Internet Matters found that 26% of the 2,000 parents of four to 16-year-olds it spoke to were concerned about the amount of money their children were spending on in-game purchases.
Chief executive Carolyn Bunting said it is important for parents to remember to shield their games account passwords or Pin numbers, and also to have regular discussions with children about what is free in games and what costs money.
"I'm sure most children won't want to be in a position where they have spent their own parents' money on upgrades or in this case, new players on Fifa," she said.
Last year Belgium banned the sale of video game loot boxes - special characters or rewards which can either be purchased or acquired through game play hours, but cannot be previewed in advance.
In June, Kerry Hopkins, the vice president of EA games, told British MPs that the boxes were "quite ethical and fun", comparing them with Kinder Eggs, Hatchimals and LOL Surprise.
"We do think the way that we have implemented these kinds of mechanics - and Fifa of course is our big one, our Fifa Ultimate Team and our packs - is actually quite ethical and quite fun, quite enjoyable to people," she said.
Prof Andrew Przybylski, director of research at the Oxford Internet Institute, said more data was needed in order to assess the impact of loot box-style purchases.
"Loot boxes and in-app purchases present parents with a new frontier of challenges," he told the BBC.
"Though loot boxes look like gambling, we won't know what their effects are until these companies start sharing their data with independent scientists.
"There isn't good evidence it is gambling, but the very fact we don't have hard data should be a concern."
Comments
"I spent £550 and still never got my favourite player, Lionel Messi."
Took the phone back off him only to look at my screen and see that a Payment of £50 had just been made which turned the event less funny really quick - Thankfully got on the phone to Google and of course changed my settings so that any payments could only be made with my password... lesson very quickly learnt!!
Microtransactions really need to be removed from Gaming though
Especially with games like FIFA where you could argue its a form of gambling!!
It's a piss take and an unfair one on consumers. Look at Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XV, Elder Scrolls games & Dragon Age.
Even the Devs on the Witcher games felt that any future DLC for games should be free. Unfortunately the DLC was still charged.
Thats a bit extreme!!
Its too easy for this to happen, one of my younger brothers did this to my dad before (old enough to know he was getting charged) ended up costing my dad £250 and this is a lot of money to him which he couldn't really afford.
My nephew did the same to my sister, she realised early and was only £10 or £20 but she did explain not to do it again and he was only 6 so probably doesn't have the same concept of money someone slightly older does, equally young children on ipads with constant advertisement or buy this on every game.
I've never bought a fifa pack in my life, for me its cheating (not properly) but just a hack to get better players in ultimate team and build your team quicker than someone else. Part of the enjoyment should be building the team from scratch not spending a penny.
The number of 18 year old girls, it was almost always girls, who had got phone contracts for about £25 a month, then run up a £100 bill in days, couldn't pay it so we're put on incoming calls only for the reat of the contract as they paid it off was shocking. For about a weeks worth of use that phone had cost them nearly £500. That's in 1990s money.
I've emptied the bank account myself.
There's no think position on the idiot switch
Kids under 10 with more smarts than their parents at least, but inheriting those genes is starting life with an anvil strapped to your leg
FFS those parents have the vote...
Probably my personal favourite FIFA.... for a few reasons.
(My FIFA 19 story deserves its own thread)
What I will say is....the whole player pack thing ..."ultimate team" it is such a load of bollocks.
Complete rip off ... So pointless and unnecessary.
I think that whole side of it...is a big no no