How A 5-Year-Old Tricked His Dad Into A $1200 Ice Cream Bill
We have become a smartphone society. It's almost impossible to fathom how anybody got anything done in the days before they existed. According to Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans own a cell phone, and 85% own smartphones. Another Pew Research Center study shows that 63% of parents say their kids between the ages of 5 and 11 use smartphones, and more than half of kids under age 5 do as well. Is it any wonder, then, that the average 5-year-old knows their way around the device? You've probably heard of someone whose child has ordered something via an app on a phone, much to the chagrin of the unsuspecting parents. But how many of those little darlings have racked up $1200 in ice cream orders while playing with their parent's phones?
One 5-year-old boy in Australia apparently did just that, according to The Takeout. While using his dad's phone to play Tetris, the little rascal apparently decided to order $1200 worth of sweet treats from a well-known gelato shop using Uber Eats. The world's leading food delivery business, which pulled in almost $5 billion in 2020 (via Business of Apps), continues to upgrade with helpful makeovers so as to make it as user-friendly as possible. Maybe, the app was a little too easy to use in this case.
Such a sweet kid
Unbeknownst to the unsuspecting dad, his adorable son used the Uber Eats app to order up a huge haul of gelato, cakes, toppings, and sundry sweetnesses, because, you know, he was hungry? The dad was on the hook for the bill, as it was being delivered to the fire station where he worked when he first got wind of it, per News.com.au. His colleagues at the fire station, and lots of friends and neighbors, per Obsev, were the happy recipients of the accidental purchase, as he was able to spread the sweetness around before it all melted. Though, there's been no word if the steam emitted from the dad's ears sped up the melting.
Uber Eats has certainly seen their share of ill-advised orders, like one pro golfer's Taco Bell splurge. Some are quite humorous; some, not so much. Either way, getting a refund is no easy deal. Once an establishment accepts the order, that order is final, per DoNotPay. And though the Uber community guidelines expressly forbid people under the age of 18 from using an adult's Uber Eats account to order food, it seems that once the deed is done, there's no turning back. There are ways to prevent your child from using your smartphone to make app purchases, according to HuffPost. The simplest, it would seem, would be to just say no.