Kids get bored easily but tossing them a smartphone to cure their restlessness isn't always a good idea. Just ask the parents of the 6-year-old Michigan boy who ordered $1,000 worth of food from Grubhub.
Keith Stonehouse handed his phone to his son Mason about 30 minutes before his bedtime, telling him he could play a game before he hit the hay. Stonehouse told MLive.com that as he was putting Mason to bed, he saw a car pull up and ring the doorbell, leaving a delivery outside the front door.
"My wife owns A Slice of Heaven Cakes bakery and it was a big wedding weekend," Stonehouse said, "so, I thought it was just someone dropping off decorative stuff they used from her. But it was from Leo's Coney Island. I said, 'What the heck?'"
As little Mason dreamed of chili cheese fries and ice cream, more and more delivery drivers pulled up to the Stonehouse residence, leaving behind an eclectic assortment of foods from shawarma and grape leaves to chicken pita sandwiches and salads. Stonehouse said that his son placed a $439 order from Happy's Pizza, an amount substantial enough to trip the fraud alert on his credit card, declining the charge. Yet an order of shrimp costing $183 from the same restaurant went through.
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Once it dawned on Stonehouse that Mason was behind the deliveries, he tried to contact one of the restaurants to see about undoing his son's glutton-fueled escapade only to be told he needed to instead call Grubhub. In the meantime, he decided to head to Mason's room to talk to him about the ordeal.
During his lecture, Stonehouse said Mason raised his hand to pause his father. Instead of interjecting to offer his apologies, Stonehouse said his son asked, "Dad, did the pepperoni pizzas come yet?" Stonehouse left the room, unsure of whether to be angry or laugh.
Grubhub told Newsweek that to "make things better for him and his family," the company is sending him $1,000 worth of Grubhub gift cards. And the good news is if his parents can't fathom spending $1,000 using Grubhub, Mason has it all figured out.
Of course, he isn't the first or the last kid to splurge by way of a parent's smartphone. From Amazon's Buy Now button to the easy-to-manipulate nature of Alexa, there are so many ways kids can make unapproved purchases with their parents' devices. Set a passcode, explore security permissions on any app that has your card linked to it, and think twice the next time you hand your little one your smartphone to keep them occupied.
