Parents whose children have accidentally run up huge bills playing games on their iPhones could be in line for compensation from Apple.
Campaigners are awaiting the result of a U.S. court case in which a group of disgruntled parents are suing the company after their children’s innocent game playing ended up costing a fortune.
They accuse Apple of enticing children to spend money on iTunes
If the parents are successful, it could open the door for legal actions worldwide.
Apple, which is worth more than £311billion, has repeatedly been criticised for allowing children to spend hundreds of pounds on games using their parents’ iPhones.
Apps such as Smurfs’ Village, based on the popular books and film, have repeatedly caught out parents. Although some apps are free to download, playing them can incur charges. As the child collects ‘game currency’, the bills can mount up.

The U.S. court papers state: ‘These games are highly addictive, designed deliberately to be so, and tend to compel children playing them to purchase large quantities of game currency, amounting to as much as $100 (£62) per purchase or more.’
Youngsters don’t need to supply credit card details, as the costs are usually charged to the parents’ iTunes accounts which are already linked to card details. It could take up to 24 hours for parents to find out about the huge bills.
Marc Gander of Consumer Action Group, which led the revolt against UK bank charges, said: ‘I think a U.S. court case will help a great deal in the UK.
‘I would have thought that an angry parent could bring a fairly simple and very cheap action in the county court to recover their money.’

Apple has already been forced to change security settings on its iPhones in a bid to stop children innocently racking up huge bills. But some parents do not realise they can block their children from using their credit card details.
In December, the Mail revealed how seven-year-old Jack Drager ran up a £1,300 bill on an iPad in four days after his mother Heidi, 32, downloaded the Tap Zoo app for him free of charge.
The Dragers, from Barnsley, didn’t realise that some of the animals on the game cost up to £79.99 each. Apple agreed to refund the bill.
Apple said it was easy for parents to activate security settings and stop children running up charges.

Five people have been charged with intentional injury to a Chinese teenager who was so desperate to buy an iPad and iPhone that he sold his kidney for just over £2,000.
The accused, from southern China, include a surgeon who removed a kidney from a 17-year-old boy in return for around 220,000 yuan - just over £20,000.

Prosecutors in Chenzhou city, Hunan province, said one of the defendants received the money to arrange the transplant. He paid the teenager, identified only as Wang, 22,000 yuan - just over £2,000 - and split the rest with the surgeon, the three other defendants and other medical staff.

The teenager, identified only by his surname Wang, comes from Anhui, one of China's poorest provinces, where inhabitants frequently leave to find work and a better life elsewhere.
He now suffers from renal deficiency, according to the government-run Xinhua News Agency.
Following the surgery in April last year, Wang bought an iPhone and iPad.
When his mother quizzed him on how he funded the sought-after goods, he admitted selling a kidney.

It is not known who received and paid for the kidney.
The organ industry in China is booming and trading organs is a widespread online practice in the country.

Official statistics show that more than a million people in China need a transplant every year, but less than ten per cent receive them, driving a lucrative black market trade.
Few Chinese agree to donate their organs after death, fuelling the rampant trade in illegal market activity.

Apple products are hugely popular in China, but are priced beyond the reach of many Chinese. IPhones start at 3,988 yuan (£400), and iPads begin at 2,988 yuan - just under £190.
Wang's renal deficiency is deteriorating, Xinhua quoted prosecutors as saying.
Only a fraction of the people who need organ transplants in China are able to get them, leading to 'transplant tourism' where patients travel overseas for such operations, and to a black market for human organs.
China banned the trading of human organs in 2007 and have introduced a voluntary donor scheme to combat the trade.
Several other suspects involved in the case are still being investigated.