DF-DFERH-01

Rant time, and as usual, some strong language is involved. 

Kid wanted to make some purchases in Google Play. Specifically in-app purchases for a game. While I am not too happy about this, I could begrudgingly allow it - as long as it isn't too often, and not too expensive stuff (although it's kinda relative, I guess.)

So I went and bought a small Google Play gift card. This is after all what they are for, right? To allow someone to make purchases without having to have something like credit cards.

When I went to activate this card on his account, I only got this completely useless error, "DF-DFERH-01" and something about not being able to load data (exact phrasing escapes me; no matter what I gave as code, even "123" gave same error) Googling that message is completely useless too, all I got was same "reset app data" advice (from several years ago, so not exactly current info), just in way more words than necessary. As you can guess, all that was completely useless.

Now, kds account is under Google Family Link control, and I started to suspect this is related. And sure, after some digging through various pages it seems that kids under 13 cannot use these gift cards. What The F***? Why?!? And if so, why doesn't the system give actually useful error about that, instead of that useless error? Guess that's google for you, half-assing everything that isn't used by 90+% of their advertising targets (I'm seriously temped of using certain other words here, but I'll hold my proverbial tongue her.e

Okay, there was this mention of family account. Of course that doesn't work at all in my computer's web browser at all (another half-assed thing) so I had to use that via android app (which I hate since it's sloooooow). Except now it only allowed me to use credit card as payment option for this shared account (despite my personal account still having some 10+ euros on it since I got myself a gift card before; nevermind this gift card I'm still holding.)

So, Google, let me get this straight: I am supposed to use my personal credit card that I am by bank's rules not supposed to give to anyone  to allow  anyone in my family, including kids to make purchases with? Think carefully about that before responding. Last I checked this is 100% against any credit card agreement, even us US - and this is EU where even more stringent regulations just came in effect.

To make this worse, I can't even use this gift card I paid actual money for to top up this family account funds so those could be used first. It only accepts credit cards. Again, What The Actual F***, Google?

At the moment, I am almost pissed off enough to contact few certain financial agencies (note plural, not limited to local ones) to make some queries about exactly how dubious this kind of arrangement actually is...