Over the winter break from school, 8-year-old Madison worked to dress up her simple mushroom home on the iPhone game Smurfs’ Village. In doing so, she also amassed a $1,400 bill from Apple.

The Rockville second-grader didn’t realize the Smurfberries she was buying on the popular game by Capcom Interactive were real purchases, much like buying a pair of shoes from Zappos or movie tickets from Fandango. After all, lots of children’s games require virtual payments of pretend coins, treasure chests and gold to advance to levels.

But like a growing number of parents, Madison’s mom, Stephanie Kay, was shocked to find very real charges from iTunes show up in her e-mail box days later.

“I thought the app preyed on children,” she said. “Note that the Smurf app states it is for ages 4-plus.”