A mum has shared a warning to other parents after discovering a terrifying app intended for her young daughter
Jane Diya from Dereham in Norfolk is issuing a stark warning to parents across the country after her seven-year-old daughter Samantha downloaded a seemingly-harmless app.
She'd asked her mum whether she could download the app, entitled Call Blaze and the Monster Machines 2018, from the Google Play Store onto her tablet
Thankfully, Jane checked it out herself before allowing Samantha to play on it, and became aware of the real nature of the app, which has now been pulled from the Play store.
Similar to the disturbing Peppa Pig YouTube videos that did the rounds last March, the app appears to be an innocent bit of fun for children - but it actually has a much darker prerogative.
It appears to be a block-matching game for children to play, and are then rewarded with a phone call from the characters of Monster Machines, a children's TV programme aired on Nickelodeon.
However, once Jane had completed the game and tapped to accept the call, a sinister voice spoke out of the phone saying that it was going to stab her.
The voice said: "Hi kids, I'm your new friend Happy Slappy, or whatever you want me to be called. You see I want to play with you kiddo, maybe we could perform some fun games together. What's this hogwash. You look afraid. Is it this knife in my whirly twirly hands? Making you a little nervous huh? That's all right 'cause this knife is gonna improve your look - when it's sticking right out of you," before ending with a sinister laugh.
Unfortunately, Jane's 13-year-old son Steven played the message, and little Samantha overheard it.
She was so terrified that she couldn't sleep, and her mum Jane said: "I was absolutely livid when I heard it. If she had heard that before me there would have been absolute hell on. I was completely furious. It is so creepy. To hear a call come from a phone on a kids’ app threatening to knife a child - I could barely believe my ears. It's completely unacceptable. I don't see how Google can allow this app to be on there."
A Google spokesman said: "We have a set of policies designed to provide a great experience for users and developers and we act quickly to remove apps from Google Play that violate those policies."
The story has now been shared nearly 8,000 times, with even comedian Jason Manford posting the warning on his own timeline.
Make sure you check your children's content before they do!
This article originally appeared on Closer Online.