Nine-year-old racks up Rs. 1 cr.+ bill on dad’s corporate credit card

A small favour for a nine-year-old turned into a bill of $118,000 (more than ₹1 crore) after a father’s decision to promote his son’s gaming video exposed just how little friction exists between a child and a digital payment.

Mighty Mike runs up a mighty tab

The boy, who runs a YouTube channel called Mighty Mike Plays featuring Minecraft and Roblox gameplay, reportedly racked up a bill of about $118,000, or roughly ₹1.13 crore, in advertising charges over three weeks. His father, marketing professional David Sarkisyan, said the saga began innocently enough: his son was frustrated that hardly anyone was watching his videos, so his father offered to spend around $20 promoting one of them.

There was, however, one detail that would prove extraordinarily expensive. The father had used his company credit card and left the payment information saved in the Google account. His son could subsequently access the account and launch additional promotional campaigns.

According to Sarkisyan, the nine-year-old did not understand the implications of what he was doing. The boy apparently interpreted the original advertising exercise as a simple equation: spend money, get more views. With the card already available, he was able to repeat the process without having to physically hand over cash, enter a new card number, or encounter a meaningful spending barrier.

The charges continued for around three weeks before the distraught father discovered what had happened. He said he was called into a meeting with his manager, corporate officials, and the finance team, where he was shown the company’s advertising expenditure.

The campaigns were reportedly linked to videos featuring names such as “Mighty Mike”, “Epic Roblox”, and Minecraft gameplay. Three promoted videos collectively generated around 200,000 views, according to Sarkisyan.

The father has accepted responsibility for leaving the card details accessible, saying his son was too young to understand the financial consequences. The Mighty Mike Plays channel has since been stopped, and Sarkisyan said the incident could have consequences for him at work.

The story is amusing on the surface because of the extraordinary mismatch between the original $20 experiment and the eventual bill. But it also illustrates a much bigger change in the way consumers spend money.

Spending in the digital age

Digital payments are designed to remove friction. That is their appeal. A purchase that once required cash, a physical card, a signature, or a conversation can now take little more than a tap or click. For adults, that convenience can make commerce faster. For children, it can make the financial consequences of an action almost impossible to see.

Roblox itself recognises the importance of parental oversight. Its current parental-control system allows parents to link their accounts to a child’s account and manage elements including spending limits. Roblox also says saved payment methods can be managed through account settings, although its rules around saving cards vary by age and country.

The incident therefore offers a useful lesson for families navigating an increasingly cashless childhood. The issue is not simply whether children understand money. It is whether the digital systems surrounding them make the value of money visible at all.

For Mighty Mike, a desire for more views became a Rs 1 crore problem. For his father, a forgotten card became a costly reminder that convenience works both ways. In the digital economy, the smallest transaction can be only one click away from becoming something much bigger.