Family recovers the $20K their son secretly donated to Twitch streamers in just 17 days

The mother of a teenager who syphoned off almost $20,000 (£15,300) from her savings account to make donations on Twitch has succeeded in her bid to get the money back.

Speaking to Dotesports, the mother confirmed that thanks to Twitch partner Xsolla, she was able to get back almost all of the $19,870.94 the child had secretly donated to streamers between 14th and 30th June.

"I am so relieved to have the money restored to my account and let the nightmare end," the mother told Dotesports. "At this point, it's within a few hundred dollars, and I am happy to have received what I did, and am not going to pursue the difference."

However, the parent admitted she felt like she was "hitting a brick wall with Twitch", and believed the company's lack of response to be "the most frustrating thing of all". She alleges that no-one responded to her queries despite sending registered mail to both Twitch CEO Emmett Shear and Amazon's legal team, but after submitting an online form, the son's Twitch account was abruptly closed, causing "all transaction information to be lost".

It's unknown if any attempts had been made to contact the streamers concerned, or if they have been affected by the donation reimbursements. According to the report, the donations went to "popular Twitch streamers like Tfue, Gorb, Ewokttv, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kurt Benkert, and Miami Heat's Meyers Leonard".

"The fact that no one would respond, and there was no way to speak with anyone was horrible," she added. "That was probably the worst."

She closes on insisting that her son is "remorseful" and is currently in receipt of counselling. He can now only play games with supervision and Xoslla has "permanently blocked" the boy's account to prevent further unauthorised donations.

"This was a tough time for our family, but hopefully we will all grow from this and be a stronger family," she said.