Family Recovers Most Of $20,000 That Son Donated To Twitch Streamers

Between June 17 to 30, a family’s savings of close to $20,000 was spent by their teenage son in the form of Twitch donations, subscriptions, and bits.

The mother, who wanted to remain anonymous to protect her family, discovered $19,870.94 in charges to a debit card that went to popular Twitch streamers, like Tfue, Gorb, Ewokttv, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kurt Benkert, and Miami Heat forward Meyers Leonard.

She told Dot Esports that almost all the money has since been credited back to their account. She successfully received a refund by contacting Xsolla, a paying service company that’s partnered with Twitch.

The Xsolla chat agent said that by using the company’s online chat feature, the mother got adjustment credits on most of the transactions with the condition that the account is “permanently blocked to prevent future unauthorized charges.”

Upon seeing the initial Reddit post, some people reached out to her, including “a couple of young people” who “destroyed” their relationships with their parents after taking money from their accounts.

Although the mother was able to get her funds back, it was not an easy process, saying “hitting a brick wall with Twitch” when trying to get her money back “was the most frustrating thing of all.”

“The fact that no one would respond, and there was no way to speak with anyone was horrible,” she said. “That was probably the worst.”

The mother said she filled out an online help form with Twitch but received no response. Meanwhile, the Twitch account associated with all the donations was shut down, “causing all transaction information to be lost.”

Sending registered mail to Twitch CEO Emmett Shear and Amazon’s legal team proved pointless as well. Other unsuccessful attempts at getting her money back included contacting the Consumer Protection Division, who told her to “be persistent” but couldn’t help.

She also went back to the bank associated with the transactions, but unless she was willing to press charges on her son, there was little the bank could do.

As for the teenaged son, Dot Esports reports that he is “remorseful,” the mother said, and is going to counseling. He is also now limited to one hour of monitored daily playtime “with the stipulation that he must do positive activities throughout the day, get exercise, and interact with the family in a positive manner.”