9-year-old blogger secretly spent $118,000 of her father's money on advertising

9-year-old blogger secretly spent $118,000 of his father's money on advertising

In the US, it has been revealed that a 9-year-old boy spent $118,000 to advertise videos about Minecraft and Roblox on his YouTube channel. His father shared this in a new video.

The schoolboy, named Mike, films videos of himself playing computer games. His channel, Mighty Mike Plays, has over 35,000 subscribers.

On September 15, another video was published on the channel. It also showed gameplay, but this time, instead of Mike, it was voiced by his father, Dave. He said that his son had been running expensive advertising campaigns behind his back. In the comments, many wrote to the boy that his parents would find out about this and that he should stop doing it.

"He is 9 years old. He is quite tech-savvy. So we thought he was just having fun playing video games and posting them on YouTube," Dave said.

The secret financial transactions were uncovered unexpectedly. Dave was called in for a meeting at work by a corporate manager and finance department staff. There, he learned that more than $100,000 had been spent from his company-issued card. After seeing the transactions, Dave understood where the money had gone.

According to the father, he decided to support his son's blogging activity when it was just starting out and his videos had only five views. Dave had set up a small $20 advertising campaign back then. After learning how advertising works, Mike later began using these tools independently. He used the money from his father's corporate card, which was linked to his Google account.

Dave said he takes responsibility for giving his son unrestricted access to financial resources.

Now, the family plans to delete saved payment information, set spending limits, and establish parental controls. Until the family issues are resolved, activity on the YouTube channel will also be temporarily suspended.