Controlled access to media and app stores

3rdfooter said:

My verbal but profoundly autistic son has a tablet (Android based). He would like to put films and music on it and also download software (yep, games) from the Google Play site.

Does anyone know if it is possible to limit the money spent on these sites? Potentially this could be a good thing and help him to make his own decisions about value and money.

I don't want him to feel every purchase has to be approved by using my bank account. It would also be a pain to set up a specific VISA card account for this kind of trivial purchase.

Any experience or insight gratefully recieved.

3F

He can be set up with an account that allows him to download free apps.  If he does want to purchase apps, then I would get him a pre-paid VISA debit card...

www.visa.co.uk/.../visa_prepaid.aspx

...onto which you can allocate with only a certain amount of money; say £20 each month.  This will prevent him from running up huge bills.  

Alternatively, if he wants to make a purchase, you can password protect the payment option on Google Play, which means you would have to enter the password to authorise payments.  

Hello, 3rdfooter.

I own a tablet myself (an iPad), as well as a smartphone (i.e. an iPhone). Some of the apps can be downloaded onto a smartphone and a web tablet. For example, if you downloaded an app onto an Android tablet, you should be able to download it onto an Android smartphone as well, assuming you have a relevant account (e.g. Google Play). 

I myself am a reliable, responsible person who would never spend more money than necessary on whatever I need, whether it's apps, music or whatever. I'm not sure if it is possible to limit the amount of money spent on app stores, but I would suggest buying a gift card. People usually buy these as Christmas or birthday gifts, and you should get one valued at up to £50 at a local high street store, which shouldn't be too costly for you. These gift cards should kind of limit the spending. If the credit gets down to £1.49, and if you or your son wanted something costing £2, you can use up your remaining credit and pay the rest by credit or debit card, or you could buy another gift card.

Hopefully my advice will be useful to you.