Sticky situation: Boy, 8, uses mum’s phone to order over $5,400 worth of lollipops

A woman in the US found herself in a sticky situation when her son used her phone to buy nearly 70,000 lollipops online.

Ms Holly LaFavers’ eight-year-old son Liam placed a bulk order for 30 boxes of Dum-Dums lollipops costing US$4,200 (S$5,450) via her Amazon account, while playing with her phone.

She discovered this on May 5 when she checked her bank account, and “immediately panicked” when she saw that her account was in the red.

Ms LaFavers said her son, whom she adopted when he was 2½ years old, has foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which resulted in learning, thinking, physical and behavioural issues.

According to Mayo Clinic, the disorder is caused by mothers who drink alcohol during pregnancy.

Ms LaFavers told the Associated Press: “He told me that he wanted to have a carnival, and he was ordering the Dum-Dums as prizes for his carnival. He was being friendly, he was being kind to his friends.”

She tried to cancel the order, but it was too late.

By then, Amazon had already delivered 22 cases of the candy, containing 50,600 lollies, to her home in the south-eastern state of Kentucky.

“Liam went outside to ride his scooter and started screaming, ‘My suckers are here,’” she told American morning television programme Good Morning America.

“There were just 22 boxes of suckers on our front porch,” she said, adding that she did not receive any alerts that the consignment had been delivered.

Another eight boxes of the candy with 18,400 lollies arrived two hours later, which Ms LaFavers was able to reject.

She said she faced difficulties trying to get a refund from Amazon, so she turned to Facebook for help.

“Hi everyone! Liam ordered 30 cases of Dum-Dums and Amazon will not let me return them.

“Sale: $130 box. Still sealed,” she wrote in a post.

Almost immediately, family, friends, neighbours and even strangers offered help and within two hours, every box was purchased.

Amazon eventually agreed to give her a full refund, Ms LaFavers said.

“After a long day of working with the bank and talking to a few news stations, Amazon called, and they are refunding my money!!!” she said in an updated Facebook post later that day.

“Thank you to everyone that offered to buy a box to help us. I will be happy to get you what you ‘ordered’ or donate them to a charity of your choice.”

In a statement to People magazine, Amazon confirmed that it had issued a full refund.

“We’re glad we were able to work directly with this customer to turn a sticky situation into something sweet,” the company said.

Separately, Mr Kirk Vashaw, chief executive of Dum-Dums, told People: “We are excited to hear about such an enthusiastic Dum-Dums fan. We love that so many people jumped in to offer to buy the extra cases and that the family was ultimately reimbursed. We’d also like to offer Liam a job interview in the next 10 to 15 years.”