“It’s like my 6-year-old was doing lines of cocaine — and doing bigger and bigger hits”

While working from home during the pandemic, Wilton., Conn., real-estate broker Jessica Johnson, 41, didn’t realize the younger of her two sons had gone on a shopping spree on her iPad. Over the month of July, George bought add-on boosters — starting with $1.99 red rings and moving up to $99.99 gold rings — that allowed him to access new characters and more speed, spending hundreds of bucks at a time.

On July 9, a day when Jessica was working in the next room, there were 25 charges totaling over $2,500.

“It’s like my 6-year-old was doing lines of cocaine — and doing bigger and bigger hits,” she joked of her first-grader.