Free Robux and gift coins: the scam built to catch kids

The scene is always similar: the child wants a skin, a pass or an item in the game, pocket money will not cover it, and a video or a classmate whispers the magic solution: a site that gives away Robux, V-Bucks or whatever coin the game of the moment uses. All you have to do is enter your username, your password, or complete a few surveys. The prize never arrives, because it does not exist.

The mechanism has three variants and all three end the same way. The site that asks for username and password steals the account, with everything bought inside it. The one that asks you to complete surveys or download apps gets paid for every form the child fills in, sometimes signing them up to premium services. And the one that asks you to install a program to unlock the prize installs exactly what you imagine. The games say it themselves on their official pages: their currency only exists inside the game, and any external generator is fraud.

The signals a child can learn to see alone

• It gives away something that costs real money, for no reason and with no limit. Nobody hands out money to strangers on the internet.
• It asks for the password outside the official game. The password gets typed in the game or the official store, nowhere else, ever.
• It rushes you: today only, last chance, 3 minutes left. Hurry is the scammer's favourite tool.
• It demands a strange step to verify you are human: surveys, downloads, your phone number.
• The comments underneath saying it worked for me are part of the stage set.

I want to train my [AGE] year old to recognise free game currency scams. Build a detective game with 6 example messages, mixing 4 typical scams (a coin generator, a fake giveaway, a survey verification, a gift that asks for the password) and 2 legitimate messages (a real promotion inside the official game, a gift from a relative). After each answer, explain in two lines which signal gave it away. Keep it playful, no scaremongering.

The underlying conversation matters more than the specific case, because the bait will change costume. The question that dismantles nearly everything: if that site gives away game money, what does the person who built it live on? A child who learns to ask that question at nine has half a lifetime of scams solved in advance.