> If a child goes through the checkout at the grocery store with cash, can the parent march in and demand a refund because "he's underage so the contract is void"?
Depends on the jurisdiction, of course. But for example in German law, the contract is not void exactly because and only if it was about daily necessities of low value - the law does, in fact, care very literally and explicitly about those details. So it's completely unfit as an example to generalize, and the contract with AWS would in fact be void. Their problem if they don't verify users' identities and age sufficiently - and it's almost certainly a deliberate business decision not to do that in order to reduce friction. and occasionally write off an unenforceable bill as cost of doing business.
Can a German child buy non-essential expensive things, like a concert ticket, console, Warhammer or whatever? (Or a video game, back when those were sold in shops.)
I bought these things while a child in the UK. I'm sure Games Workshop would have offered a refund on something unopened if my parents had demanded it, but I'm fairly sure the ticket agency would not.
The generally agreed limit (also established in court cases) is the amount of pocket money a child of the given age typically gets per month. For a 10 year old, that's about 20 EUR, for a 16 year old about 50 EUR. A console would definitely be too expensive, as would be big name concert tickets. Unless it's a recent AAA title, video games would be OK. No idea what Warhammer costs these days.
Most retailers are probably willing to take the risk of maybe having to do a refund, unless it's something really expensive (or perishable/consumable).
There are definitely limits in some countries relative to the US. I was in university at 16. My parents were covering a lot of costs but I was certainly making regular purchases of all manner of things. My understanding is that would perhaps be something of an issue some places.
Well fair enough, although I find that rather surprising. If I understand you correctly selling anything more expensive than cheap food to a child carries a high degree of risk in Germany.
Then again, maybe making it impossible for a child to pawn expensive items for cash isn't such a bad idea. At least there shouldn't be any loopholes given the way Germany went about it.
Doing any business at all in Germany carries extreme business risk, by American standards. The attitude of Germans seems to be to just live with it and maybe get insurance. If you just have to accept courts will void 1% of your transactions (costing another 2% in legal fees) then you just make everything 5% more expensive to cover it.
This is why there's not much big tech in Germany. A single legal dispute can theoretically bankrupt any company, completely at random, at no fault of the company, but practically doesn't. It may be a low enough chance to justify investing thousands but nobody would invest a hundred million dollars in that.
> If you just have to accept courts will void 1% of your transactions (costing another 2% in legal fees) then you just make everything 5% more expensive to cover it.
That's an absurd exaggeration in regard to the issue at hand. Almost certainly far less than 1% of purchases by minors are voided, and NONE of those involve legal fees unless the seller chooses to go to court rather than refund.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet money that there are overall far less purchases refunded in Germany than in the USA.
> If I understand you correctly selling anything more expensive than cheap food to a child carries a high degree of risk in Germany.
Basically yes - the limit is generally considered to be the amount of monthly pocket money children typically get, so around 20 EUR for a 10 year old. And it would be possible for the seller to ask for a signed note of consent from the parent.
And of course the risk is limited to possibly having to revert the sale, which would be fairly rare for things that are just somewhat over that limit. Educated guess about how high the risk is for any given case are probably not hard.