Can In-App Purchases by Minors Be Reversed? Japan's Minor Contract Rescission Right and the Reality of Gaming Disputes

Audience
Parents of school-age children and adolescents
Target length
~1,400 words
Status
Draft v1 (translated from Japanese v1)
Original
../269_legal_purchasing_age.md

Lead

Finding out that a child has been spending money on a game is not uncommon. Looking up "can we get a refund?" quickly leads to the Civil Code. The law looks complicated at first, but once the core mechanism is understood, both preventive measures and responses after the fact become much easier to organize. This article covers how Japan's minor contract rescission right works and the specific conditions under which it fails to produce an actual refund.