CyberAwareUK
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Gaming Safety
Gaming is where many children meet strangers — including predators. How to handle chat, strangers, in-game purchases and scams on Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft and more.
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1. What it is
Online games are social spaces with voice and text chat, friend systems and in-game economies. That combination — anonymity, chat, and children — is exactly what groomers and scammers exploit. Most game chat is public; predators use it to start conversations they then move to private apps.
2. Warning signs (five to watch)
- A "teammate" who always wants to play alone with your child, not in a group.
- Voice chat switching off when you enter the room.
- Gifting skins, V-Bucks/Robux, or items — "friends" don't usually spend money on children.
- Asking to chat on another app (Discord DM, WhatsApp, Snapchat).
- Requests for photos, personal details, or "proving" their age on webcam.
3. What a child can do
- Never share personal details in game chat — not your real name, school, age or location.
- Don't accept friend requests from strangers, and don't join private parties with people you don't know.
- Mute, block and report anyone who makes you uncomfortable — every game has these tools.
- Never move chats to another app — that's a classic groomer move.
- Never "buy" items from strangers — almost all of it is a scam.
4. What a parent/carer can do
- Set voice/text chat to "Friends only" or off in each game's parental controls (Roblox, Fortnite/Epic, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch all support this).
- Play with them sometimes — you'll see the spaces they're in.
- Disable or cap in-game purchases (spending limits + PIN) to stop "free Robux/V-Bucks" scams working.
- Keep consoles in shared spaces.
- Check PEGI ratings at pegi.info and the Parental Controls guide for each platform.
5. Common gaming scams
- "Free Robux/V-Bucks" generators — always scams; they steal accounts.
- Fake giveaways asking for login details "to verify".
- Account "hacked, pay to recover" demands.
- Item trading scams — "trade me your skin, I'll pay after".
- Impersonation — someone pretending to be a game moderator asking for passwords.