How To Turn Off In App Purchases

In today’s world of free apps, putting up with potential purchases and advertising can be considered a necessary evil.

We all know that one person who has been suckered into accidentally spending $100 bucks on upgrades to their favorite game and didn’t realize they were actually in app purchases. Our family has fallen victim to this in kid’s apps, we had a random bill for about $40 dollars from some games that Kora and Logan were playing and they kept clicking upgrade.

Fortunately, we caught this early, but a friend of ours wasn’t as fortunate, he kept accepting an option to try again on a popular game and a couple of weeks later he had an iTunes bill for over $100 dollars. Surprisingly, this can happen to anybody and if you aren’t knowingly buying something, you can’t help but feel taken advantage of if this happens to you.

I thought it was important to share a simple tip that can prevent this from happening to you and your family. I wanted to show you how to turn off the in-app purchase options on your phones and tablets.

It is really easy to do, I am going to walk you thru the methods for both an iPhone and an Android phone.

Here we go!

iPhone and iPad

This is the chain of commands you follow:

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions > Create a Restrictions Pass-code or Enter Current One > Deselect In-App Purchases.

Here are the screen shots

Or you can remove your payment options attached to your Apple ID – Settings – General – iTunes & App Store – Select your Apple ID and choose View Apple ID (you may need to log in) – Payment Information – Select None Or this can also be done on the computer at the iTunes Store.

Android

There is no setting to turn off in app purchases, but since all purchases run through the Google Play Store, you can require password protection that requires a password to be entered prior to buying an app or doing any in-app purchases, so this has you covered.

Here is your chain of commands to turn off in app purchases on Android phones and tablets:

Open the Google Play Store app > > Tap on Settings > Tap Require authentication for purchases > Select For all app purchases through Google Play on this device – Enter your Google account password and tap OK or Enter.

Here are the pics to help you out

Now that you know how to turn off in app purchases you don’t have to worry about any random attacks on your bank account, if only I could have relayed these simple steps to our friend before he inadvertently spent over $100 on those video games!