Are your kids shopping online with your info?

An interesting study out of England reports that children between the age of 8 to 16 are spending quite a bit of money online. The problem is that they are using their parents stored info to do it with. This works out to almost one million kids who are using their parents credit card info that is stored in cookies on home computers to do their shopping online.

The children are spending an average of $48US (£25) for every illegal purchase but 5% of the kids are forking over $110.00 (£75) to $221.00 (£150) of their parents money. The research also showed that about 70 percent of the UK children know where their parents go shopping online and a further 20 percent know all the usernames and password their parents use.

Parents are in the dark when it comes to their kids behaviour as only 2 percent think their children would make online purchases without their permission and only six percent admitted their kids have access to their credit card details. However, with 44 percent of parents book-marking their favourite online shopping sites and a third saving their bank card details online, they’re making it very easy for their children to buy online without their knowledge.

- Carrie-Ann Skinner PCWorld

I ever caught a kid of mine pulling this kind of crap I would help the police arrest them for theft, then make them work off every cent they stole from me.