Girl sneaks $350 toy order on Amazon, mom has her donate items to children’s hospital

Girl sneaks $350 toy order on Amazon, mom has her donate items to children’s hospital

Courtesy Catherine Lunt(SALT LAKE CITY) — This 6-year-old girl has put our shopping game to shame.

Katelyn Lunt, a first-grader from Utah, recently ordered $350 worth of Barbies and a toy pony from her mother’s Amazon account and now her mom is using it as a teachable moment.

“Our family came home and the truck pulls up and all of these boxes are being pulled out of the truck,” mom Catherine Lunt told “Good Morning America.”

She had no idea about her daughter’s online splurge.

Lunt said that Katelyn was told she could order one Barbie as a prize for doing extra chores. Turns out, Katelyn had bought much more than that.

While checking on another order, Lunt saw a few items had been ordered that she didn’t recognize and was able to cancel them. Two pages of items however, had already shipped.

The family decided that they should donate the toys to kids at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Amazon did not immediately respond to ABC’s request for comment on the Lunts’ story.

But Katelyn is not the first child to spend lavlishly on the service.

Last year, 6-year-old Brooke Neitzel of Dallas, Texas, used her parents’ Echo to buy a $160 dollhouse and four pounds of cookies.

“I just asked her if she could order a dollhouse and some cookies,” Brooke told “GMA” at the time. “She said, ‘Do you want this?’ and I said yes.”

Brooke’s parents also turned the incident into a learning experience by donating the dollhouse to a local children’s hospital.

In regards to Brooke’s story, Amazon told ABC News in a statement in 2017, “You must ask Alexa to order a product and then confirm the purchase with a ‘yes’ response to purchase via voice. If you asked Alexa to order something on accident, simply say ‘no’ when asked to confirm. You can also manage your shopping settings in the Alexa app, such as turning off voice purchasing or requiring a confirmation code before every order.”

The company did not indicate whether it is taking steps to make it harder for children to access the Echo without an adult’s permission.

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