In November last year I published my first addition to Aspiri Lifestyle Tips which was a video blog on a place in Los Angeles called The Grove. I loved sharing the highlights with you and thought you would enjoy hearing about another of my favourite places to visit in Los Angeles.

Santa Monica is a beautiful coastal area a short distance from Los Angeles, and as I experienced with Gavin and our daughters last year, a perfect place to escape to. Please watch the video above to find out all about it!

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A little over a year and a half ago, I received a bit of bill shock from iTunes. Imagine my surprise when I was informed that $880 been debited to my credit card over a seven day period!

Upon ringing Apple, they confirmed that my credit card had been charged numerous times for various in-app game purchases. For instance, there was one charge for $109.99 for virtual gems.  Now I can assure you I probably wouldn’t spend $109.99 on real gems, let alone on virtual gems.  Apple then advised that each transaction had been authorised by the input of my iTunes account password.

With this new information my suspicions were now directed to my eight year old daughter (and her iPod).  Of course, when approached by me, she denied all responsibility – well at least initially.  I explained to her that if she did not input the password, then fraud must have been committed on my iTunes account and I would have to report this to the police.  As such, the police will want to interview her and get a signed statement that she did not commit the fraud.  At this point, I may have even suggested that if she lied to a police officer, she might even be put into jail for making an incorrect statement.

At or around this point, my eight year old admitted that “she had seen Mummy input the password [on one occasion] and had then used it to purchase various in-app purchases that had popped up while she was playing free games”.

After I cleaned out my daughters entire savings bank account, grounded her and banished her to her bedroom for an inordinate amount of time, I realised that it would be very difficult to get this money back from Apple.

However, after I cooled down and a couple of weeks went by, I started googling the issue further.  As such, I came across examples in the United Kingdom where a child had knocked up $1,500 worth of in-app purchases within 10 minutes.  The parents had entered their password to allow the child to purchase a free game.  Little did the parents know that the game subsequently prompted the child to make in-app (paid) purchases, whilst playing the game. Further, for a period of 10 minutes after someone enters a password, any further purchases do not require the password to be entered again.  Hence the child just keep making in-app purchases when prompted by the game, to the tune of $1,500.

Given the media profile of this example, Apple offered to refund the monies back to the parents.

So I decided to search further and found that a class action had commenced in the United States and that Apple had just settled this out of court to the tune of $100 million in refunds to the applicants’ iTunes accounts.

Unfortunately, I could not find any similar class actions in Australia.  So I thought I’d chance my luck and so I rang Apple and explain what had happened.  I told them that I did not authorise the transactions, but rather my 8 year old daughter had overseen my wife putting in the password on one occasion (and we were particularly vigilant about this up until that point).  As such, my 8 year old subsequently went onto to spend $880 on Virtual Gems within a kid’s game that was supposedly a free game.

To my great surprise, Apple said “No worries, sir. I’ll speak to my manager and we’ll get this refunded to you in full” and within 10 minutes the whole $880 had been refunded in full to my credit card.

In the end, I don’t know what I was more in shock at! Whether it was the initial shock of $880 debited to my credit card, my daughter’s eventual confession, or that Apple simply offered to refund the amount in full.

It would appear that the Apple call centre is aware of this issue (given the U.S. class action) and will, once prompted, refund any excess purchases by a child, whether authorised by a password or not.

The moral of the story is if you suffer iTunes bill shock:

1. Ring Apple and explain the situation (and maybe mention the U.S. settlement) and seek a refund; and,
2. You can now put Parental restrictions on your child’s device to prevent such events occurring in the future. For more details of this, follow this linkhttp://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201304

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When travelling overseas, I find having internet access on my mobile phone more important than even the ability to make phone calls. You can always ring someone on Skype but you need internet access in the first place and whilst you can find a Wi-Fi network, often they are not handy or your hotel charges you a small fortune to use them. Why not have internet access with you, wherever you go?

In this regard, I order international phone sim cards, and have them delivered even before I depart Australia. I find this is invaluable so I wanted to share it with you – so please feel free to watch my video (above).

Things I use mobile internet access for whilst overseas

• Google maps (invaluable) – as a GPS in a car, or navigating subway systems and bus networks in most major cities (invaluable – especially for buses), avoiding getting lost whilst walking through a foreign city, find a service station to re-fuel or just getting around.
• Trip Advisor and Yelp – finding just about anything. Good restaurants, convenience stores, other travel tips on how to get from point A to point B.
• Buy tickets for major tourist venues online and avoid the queues. eg. the Eiffel Tower online is cheaper and you can avoid the often 1 hour queues.
• Add money to your travel money cards via internet banking – this can be done anywhere if you have mobile internet access.
• Ringing home via Skype or in some cases, the sim card comes with free international phone calls, so I don’t even need Skype.
• Access to Australian news – what is going on at home and around the world?
• Keeping up with emails
• Sending back pictures and details of our adventures whilst overseas.

All of this can be done very simply for $100 (for a whole month) or as little as $30 or $40 for shorter periods, with no risk of mobile phone Bill Shock! Hope you enjoy the video!

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Let’s face it – travelling overseas can be stressful and we all have a limited time frame. It’s really not enjoyable if you are in an unfamiliar place and not really discovering it, or if you are constantly on the go and not really stopping to take it all in.

Therefore it’s great to find a place you not only love but where you feel like a local and want to go back to time and time again.

For my family and I, The Grove in Los Angeles is one of these places, so I have done a video on why this place is a must visit for everyone passing through LA.

In our client survey last year, clients provided overwhelming positive feedback on our services with the vast majority of clients feeling that they knew us personally and consider us “friends” and certainly these feelings are mutual.

Like all good friends, we want to share more with you! In this respect, one of the most enjoyable elements of my role, is seeing our clients travel and hearing all about their travel adventures. Many of these stories have shaped the way that Sharon and I travel today with our two children.

As you know late last year, Sharon and I took some time off to travel with our children around the world. This was a truly inspiring trip and created many wonderful memories for our family and our bond with our children.

Since returning home, many clients have asked us, where we went, what did we see and how did we book accommodation and flights etc. Even though we posted some of our photos on the Aspiri Facebook site a couple of months ago, we still continued to receive questions from clients.

Accordingly, we felt we wanted to share more with you and accordingly, Sharon and I have recorded the below video of our holiday.