Google Waives Massive Bill a Teenager Ran Up Accidentally

Google chose to forgive the 1,00,000 euro ($112,000) bill run up by a teenager in Spain who thought he was becoming a "rich YouTuber."  He was trying to promote his brass band online.

In August this year, 12-year-old Jose Javier from the Spanish seaside city of Torrevieja had set up an account with AdWords, the advertising service from Google that a pay-per-click program allowing ads to be placed in search pages.

A customer provides credit card details to the service but is charged only when the ad is clicked. Javier had given out his banking details - based on his savings account opened by his parents - thinking that the service would help him make him money through ads placed on self-made videos of his band on YouTube.  

Unfortunately, the child had confused between Google's two products, AdWords and AdSense. By early September Google started billing the account and it quickly rose from €15 to €19,700 before jumping to the formidable 1,00,000 euro bill.

His mother, Inma Quesada, told a local newspaper El Pais that her son had not realized what he was doing. She said that her son had wanted to "buy instruments" for his band called 'Los Salerosos' (roughly  translating to The Salties) where he plays the trumpet.

The tech giant however cancelled the bill after it came to light that it was a teenager using the service.

"It was all a mistake and that he did it without thinking", said a Google spokeswoman. "A 12-year-old boy doesn't want to start spending 100,000 euros."

The company has said that it would be waiving off all charges after studying the case. It noted that AdWords has age restrictions in place and urged users to familiarize themselves with its safety policies.

The issue came to light when the bank alerted the parents that the company was intending to charge the boy's banking account.