Kid Uses Sleeping Mom’s Thumb To Make Amazon Purchases

The reason for fingerprint sensors on our phone is so that if someone were to get their hands on it, they wouldn’t be able to unlock it. So far it has proven to be largely successful against thieves and even law enforcement, but it seems to be quite useless in the face of a determined child as one mother has found out.

In a report from The Wall Street Journal, one mother by the name of Bethany Howell woke up to find that she had reportedly spent $250 on Amazon for Pokemon-related items. How is that possible? Turns out that when she was sleeping, her 6-year old daughter managed to take her thumb and unlock her smartphone, and launched the Amazon app where she went on a shopping spree.

At first they assumed the worst and thought that they might have been hacked, but her daughter, to her credit, confessed by telling her parents that it was her doing the shopping and that the orders are being delivered to the house. Unfortunately Amazon only allowed Howell to return 4 out of the 13 items that were ordered, so they decided to tell their daughter that Santa had “found out” what she wanted for Christmas as a way to explain what happened.

So it seems that instead of worrying about that snatch thief lurking in the shadows, or that pickpocket on the train, you should probably be more concerned about that child of yours who probably has yet to learn the value of money.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Amazon, Security