Punjab teenager spends Rs 16 lakh on PUBG

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 2

A Kharar-based teenager lost nearly Rs 16 lakh in a famous game, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG).

He had allegedly purchased virtual ammunition, passes and artillery to master the game in a month.

Boy now working at a scooter repair shop

After the incident, the father has made his son work at a scooter repair shop. “I just can’t let him sit idle at home and cannot give him a mobile phone even for studying. He is working at a scooter repair shop so that he realises how hard it is to earn money. I am hopeless now as the money was saved for my son’s future.”

According to his parents, the teenager told them that he was using mobile excessively for online study. The 17-year-old (name withheld) had access to three bank accounts that were used by him to upgrade his PUBG profile, for in-app purchases and for other users (his teammates) also.

His parents came to learn about this from their bank statements. His father, who did not wish to be named, is a government employee and has a medical history. He said his son used his life’s savings kept for medical expenses. The teenager has also allegedly exhausted his mother’s Provident Fund (PF) amount and some from his own account.

“I had saved the money for my medical needs and my son’s future. During the lockdown, I was staying at the place of my posting, while my son was staying with my wife here. He used her mobile phone to make all transactions and would delete the message regarding amount debited from account,” said his father.

He further alleged that his son had all account details as he used to make online payments for his mother’s kitty party. “We never knew that he was using our accounts for playing a game. Even the police didn’t help us as my son had deliberately spent it,” added the aggrieved father. “He spent around Rs2 lakh of her mother’s PF amount which she transferred to the bank account recently. I had kept some amount in his personal account and a majority of the amount was in my non-salaried savings account. All of it was gone in no time.”

His son also played smart by shuffling the amount from one account to another to avoid any doubts. “After we received details from the bank, I found that on several occasions, he shuffled amount from one bank to another to avoid nil balance. He was using his mother’s phone for quite sometime and she was not much vigilant to notice this.”