Girl, 13, may have faked age for online payments

Tencent looking at improving parental controls over cash transfers on apps

An employee in the public relations department at Tencent Holdings, operator of a live-broadcast app through which a man received online payments of more than 250,000 yuan ($36,400) from a 13-year-old girl for his singing talent, said the girl might have faked her age when registering.

"Our data show that the user gave her age as 28, not 13, as reported in the media," the employee said. He declined to give his name.

"She gave her surname as Han when registering, which is also different from the name Su in media reports," the employee said.

The girl, said to be from Shanghai, paid the man between 1,900 and 9,500 yuan every day over a two-month period through online payments using her mother's mobile phone and debit card. Her mother discovered the debits on Jan 30, China Central Television reported.

Viewers of online live broadcasting can send virtual gifts, which they purchase, to broadcasters. Gifts range from 0.1 yuan to more than 1,000 yuan. A percentage of the money goes to the platform.

"We hope the mother will come to us and verify the facts. If it's true that the user is a 13-year-old who spent the money without consent, we can negotiate a refund," the Tencent employee said.

He said game and live-broadcast apps currently hosted by Tencent don't require real-name registration, but the company is considering establishing a platform for parents to monitor their children's behavior.

"Parents will be able to set ceilings on how much their juvenile children can spend from their account per day and how long they can use the app for," he said.

The mother, surnamed Sun, said that shortly after she discovered money was missing, her daughter admitted she had spent it on a broadcaster going by the name "Yang Guang", who is about 20 years old and has more than 720,000 followers on the live-broadcast app Quanmin Karaoke.

According to online chat records between the broadcaster and the girl, which Sun presented to CCTV, he asked for money directly at least twice in private - once for 5,000 yuan and once for 20,000 yuan. Sun said she was unaware of the debits and had given her daughter her mobile phone for leisure use.

"I didn't receive any notification by text message from the bank after each of the payments. Maybe they were deleted by my daughter," she said.

The Sijing police station in Songjiang district said it received a report from Sun on Feb 3, but declined to pursue the matter as fraud was not involved.

Broadcasters said it's common to ask for gifts from viewers. A rising number of young performers are making money through such apps. There are roughly 150 websites across the country that enable individuals to broadcast live. They attract about 200 million users, among whom the number of minors is rising, according to some broadcasters. They said the platforms should be held responsible for encouraging users to give gifts in various forms.

"Platforms organize competitions regularly between broadcasters to see who has more gifts, and promise that whoever gives the most gifts can get the broadcaster's personal contact information," said a 22-year-old broadcaster who asked to be identified by her nickname, "Dada".

On Friday, China Daily reporters saw a list of followers ranked by gift amount to a broadcaster on YY.com in the past five days. The top contributor gave 350,000 yuan.

zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn