‘I’m definitely cooked’: A 9-year-old Minecraft YouTuber ran up a $118,000 ad bill using his dad’s company credit card

A nine-year-old Minecraft player says he’s “definitely cooked” after he spent a six-figure sum on YouTube ads using his dad’s company credit card.

David Sarkisyan – who works in marketing – took over his son Mike’s YouTube channel Mighty Mike Plays for a video entitled ‘Mighty Mike Plays is Over’, in which he explained how his son had managed to rack up a $118,000 bill.

“All of this honestly never started as anything serious, Sarkisyan explained on the video. “He was about 8 years old. He’d sit there and watch other people play Minecraft and Roblox for hours on YouTube.

“And eventually one day he asks: ‘Hey, you know, can I upload my gameplay, etc?” And we were like, you know what? It’s at least it’s more interactive versus just sitting there and staring other people play. I was like, ‘all right, sure dude, yeah, we can try it out’.

“So, I figured out a way to get the gameplay broadcasted straight from the PS5, a cheap headset, that was basically the whole setup. No editing software, no fancy equipment, just hit and go live and it uploads.

“So the first video he did got, like, like five views. Nothing happening, no momentum, but you know, he loved it. He enjoyed it. Every single day was like “Dad, can I make another video? Can I go record?’ and I was like ‘yeah, sure’. If I’m being honest, I loved it too, getting to sit next to him, watch him play, genuinely excited.”

Sarkisyan said his biggest mistake was using his company credit card to buy Mike some Robux currency for Roblox one day, and not removing the card details.

“What I didn’t think about, not even for a second, was that saving my company’s card meant it was just going to sit there afterward, pretty much available anytime he opened an app on his own,” he said.

“I want to pause here and be really clear about something,” he added, “because it matters a lot to me that you guys hear this part. I’m not blaming him for what happens here or what ended up happening later. He’s only nine.

“He didn’t fully understand what a company card meant or that a large number on the screen represented real money, and people are eventually going to notice that money being used. To him, at nine years old, if the button worked, I guess it worked. That was the  whole thought process.

“I’m the adult in the situation. I’m the one who should have set up the limits or used a separate card entirely, or done literally anything besides what I did, which was nothing. But I didn’t know any of that yet. As far as I was concerned, that was just a completely normal week.”

The parent bought his son $20 of YouTube ad revenue but forgot to delete the card details

A few weeks after this, Mike told his father he was upset that nobody was watching his YouTube channel, so Sarkisyan offered to set up a small ad campaign costing around $20, to drive some more views to one of his son’s videos.

Unfortunately, he didn’t then remove the card details from the account, and his son proceeded to continue using it for more, significantly larger ad campaigns.

“I think I put like $20 into a small ad campaign just to get one of his videos in front of a few people,” he explained. “Nothing crazy, nothing serious. And while I was doing it, I was kind of talking to myself and explaining the process. You set a budget, you pick who sees it, you hit run, it goes pending, it goes live, etc.

“I did not think for one second that this was going to be an issue. Huge mistake on my part. Turns out he was watching a little more closely than I realized. A little after that, I find out that basically he had gone in there and uploaded his own campaigns and stuff.

“So here’s the thing – where I had put $20, he didn’t really register that that was supposed to be some kind of limit in his head. The logic was simple, I guess – more money, more views. Anyway, turns out a 9-year-old gets access to an ad account with no limits. And the credit card, it just says approved every single time, no matter what. He does not think that what he’s doing is wrong.”

“I looked into the adoption process,” the father jokes

Sarkisyan realised the issue when he was called into the office for a meeting.

“I sat down,” he recalled. “It’s not just my manager in the room. There’s a bunch of people from corporate. There’s financial people. There’s some finances sitting on the laptop. They slide out this this table. Full breakdown of ad spend from the past three weeks, apparently.

“And they asked me very calmly – which honestly kind of made the whole thing worse – ‘hey, can you explain the $118,000 that’s been spent on this account?’

“And I’m staring at it because in my head, I’m doing the math, and it dawned on me like, ‘oh crap, this is something my son probably did’. I’m having a personal crisis at that point. The numbers sitting on the page in front of me had about five more digits than it should have had.”

Sarkisyan was told the situation would have to be escalated higher to corporate members outside the company’s headquarters, and that they were going to review the situation and decide what happens next, which at the time of writing he still doesn’t know.

“They asked me very calmly – which honestly kind of made the whole thing worse – ‘hey, can you explain the $118,000 that’s been spent on this account?'”

“You know, this is not like a ‘ha ha funny’ story, everything worked out fine kind of situation,” he explained. “I mean, not yet. There’s a real genuine chance that I end up personally having to pay some of that, or all of that back, out of my pocket.

“And we’re not some family with six figures just sitting around somewhere. That’s not a reality. So, I’m still waiting to find out if I still have a job. I have to find out if this is going to come directly out of my pocket.”

As for Mike, Sarkisyan says he’s going to be punished for what he did but he’s still not really sure what form that will take beyond his channel being stopped for now.

“I made an actual list of what to do to Mike at this point,” he explained. “He is going to be punished. I’m gonna have a serious discussion with him, serious conversation. Take away the iPads, the PlayStations. He’s definitely going to be mowing lawns until he’s 18 or something like that.

“I even looked into maybe what the adoption process actually involves, just out of curiosity. I’m kidding, obviously, nobody’s getting adopted. But I’ll be honest with you, for about a full minute, I had some unhinged thoughts.

“In reality, look, he’s he’s our son. We love him. We’re going to figure this out together as a family. But, you know, in that specific moment, staring down six figures of unauthorized advertising money spent from our company, you know, it’s just a sobering moment.”