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Little Girl Gets Creative and Uses Sleeping Mom’s Thumbprint to Shop Online
A six-year-old Pokemon fan from Arkansas found a clever way to catch them all this holiday season.
Bethany Howell was taking a nap when her daughter, Ashlynd, used her fingerprint to open up the Amazon app on Howell’s phone. According to the Wall Street Journal, Howell’s daughter then managed to order $250 worth of Pokemon toys for herself, making all her Christmas wishes come true.
The following day, Howell checked her email and found the charges from the purchases. Howell originally thought she had been hacked, however, after seeing that the items were to be delivered to her own home, she realized her daughter might have gone on a little shopping spree.
“We thought someone had hacked our account,” Howell told Daily Mail Online. “Ashlynd must’ve had my phone and ordered things. I asked her if she was on my phone looking at Pokemon.”
After putting the pieces together, Howell realized that her daughter was able to fill out the rest of the information due to the “auto-fill” feature. She also didn’t need any credit card information because it was already stored in Howell’s profile.
Howell was only able to return four of the items and used the rest for Christmas gifts. Howell told her daughter that Santa found out about her little shopping trip and decided to give her those gifts.
Howell didn’t think the story would go much further after sharing it with some friends on Facebook.
“It all started with my husband sharing the story with our friends and family on Facebook,” Howell told Your Daily Dish via Facebook. “Laura Stevens, the journalist from the Wall Street Journal and I have a mutual friend, who connected us after she read the story on Facebook. We agreed to be interviewed for the story thinking it was a funny story worth sharing, never thinking it would go any further.”
She continued, “This whole experience has been surreal to say the least. None of us ever thought it would go beyond the initial story in the Wall Street Journal.”
This isn’t the first time a story like this has popped up.
“A federal judge ordered Amazon to reimburse parents whose children made in-app purchases without permission,” according to Wisconsin television station WITI-TV.
Hopefully, Howell has put a stronger password on her phone!