Toronto family says an 11-year-old spent $2,000 on Roblox gift cards

A Toronto family says their 11-year-old son took cash from their emergency savings and spent $2,000 of it on Roblox gift cards at a Walmart store, in a case first reported by CTV News and covered by Dexerto.

Parents Hong Jin and Jason Kim said the boy took an envelope of cash from the house before a visit to his grandmother.

While his grandmother took him to Walmart to browse the toy section, the boy slipped away and bought $2,000 worth of Roblox gift cards in two separate cash transactions, according to the family’s account. They only discovered what had happened after noticing the emergency money was gone.

Walmart says its gift card policy was followed

The family returned to the store with the cards and receipts and were told the cards were final sale and could not be refunded. Jin questioned how a child carrying that much cash was able to complete the purchases without an adult being consulted.

Walmart said it had reviewed the transactions and found the employee followed its $1,000 limit on gift card purchases; the boy stayed under that cap by splitting the total across two sales. The retailer also said Walmart Canada applies no age restriction to gift card purchases, though individual card issuers may impose conditions at redemption. Walmart said it contacted the family directly about the incident.

The case follows a familiar pattern in coverage of children spending on games. Dexerto pointed to a parent who found their child had bought 49,300 Fortnite V-Bucks, another young viewer who spent close to $20,000 of a parent’s money on Twitch in 17 days, and an earlier case in which an 11-year-old spent $1,200 in Fortnite on a parent’s credit card — a purchase Epic Games eventually refunded. Gift cards bought with cash sit outside that route: there is no chargeback and no platform refund to appeal to, which is what leaves this family arguing with a retailer rather than a publisher.