He Must Have Been Hungry: Michigan Boy Spends About $1 K on Food Delivery
A six-year-old boy may lose his allowance for the next few years after ordering about $1 thousand worth of food using the Grubhub app on his father's phone.
Keith Stonehouse says the food orders just started showing up randomly Saturday (1/28) night after his son Mason went on the ordering spree.
The smorgasbord included five large orders of jumbo shrimp, salads, ice cream, chili cheese fries, and rice, along with shawarma and chicken pita sandwiches. Stonehouse tells Mlive that the delivery drivers just kept showing up, one after another.
Father's Anger Beginning to Subside
Stonehouse says he's not yet ready to laugh about the incident but his anger is starting to wane.
“This was like something out of a “Saturday Night Live” skit,” Stonehouse, who says he still isn’t laughing, told MLive. “I was probably a 9.5 out of 10 anger while it was happening. The next day, I was at an eight and now I’m at about a three. I don’t really find it funny yet, but I can laugh with people a little bit. It’s a lot of money and it kind of came out of nowhere.”
Let the Food Ordering Begin
Stonehouse says he gave Mason his cell phone so he could play a game about a half hour before the boy was supposed to go to bed. He never dreamed the boy would open the Grubhub app and start making large orders from various restaurants in the Metro Detroit area.
Stonehouse says he and Mason were home alone while his wife was out with friends.
The father of two from Chesterfield Township says that after a few orders arrived at the house he checked his phone and saw that his bank account was quickly being drained. Fortunately, Chase Bank flagged a $439 pizza order as fraudulent and canceled the order.
Stonehouse added that most of the food went into the family's refrigerators and they shared a good deal of it with friends and neighbors.
He recommends that parents put safeguards like password protection in place in order to avoid a similar situation.