Facebook admitted defrauding kids and parents of thousands of dollars in early free-to-play games

Facebook engaged in practices that tricked children and parents into spending money in free-to-play games, according to court documents unsealed and reported by the publication Reveal. And the company often denied attempts by parents to recover hundreds or even thousands of dollars until credit card companies “clawed back” the money from Facebook.

The 135-pages of documents include internal Facebook memos, secret strategies, and employee emails that showed how the social media company engaged in what was internally dubbed “friendly fraud” in order to maximize revenues. These findings are explosive, as they tell a different story about so-called “whales,” or the small percentage of players who spend a lot of money in games.