On Sunday, May 4, as Holly LaFavers was preparing to go to church, a delivery worker dropped off a 25-pound box of lollipops in front of her apartment building in Lexington, Kentucky.
And another. And then another. Soon, 22 boxes of 50,600 lollipops were stacked five boxes high in two walls of Dum-Dums. That was when LaFavers heard what no parent wants to hear: Her child had unwittingly placed a massive online order.
“Mom, my suckers are here!” said her son, Liam.
“I panicked,” LaFavers, 46, said. “I was hysterical.”
LaFavers said in an interview that Liam, 8, became familiar with Amazon and other shopping sites during the pandemic, when she regularly ordered supplies. Since then, she has occasionally let him browse the site if he keeps the items in the cart.
But over the weekend, Liam had a lollipop lapse. He told his mother he wanted to organize a carnival for his friends, and mistakenly, he said, he ordered the candy instead of reserving it.
LaFavers said she discovered something was amiss after a shopping trip early Sunday, when she checked her bank balance online. “It was in the red,” she said.
The offending item was a $4,200 charge from Amazon for 30 boxes of Dum-Dums. Frantic and upset, she called Amazon, which advised her to reject the shipments. LaFavers was able to turn away eight of the boxes, totaling 18,400 lollipops, but the 22 boxes containing 50,600 lollipops had already landed.
LaFavers said she was then told by Amazon that it could not take the candy back for a refund because it was food. So she tried to send back to the virtual shopping world what it had unloaded on her in the first place.
“Hi Everyone! Liam ordered 30 cases of Dum-Dums and Amazon will not let me return them. Sale: $130 box. Still sealed,” she wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
The post attracted the attention of local news stations and national media outlets, highlighting the financial treachery of online activity.
Amazon eventually told LaFavers it would give her a refund. On Wednesday, after the refund came through, LaFavers decided to give away the Dum-Dums instead of selling them.
Liam’s online browsing privileges are on pause. But LaFavers said he, too, had tried to find a way to recoup her money, telling his mother, “It’s OK, Mom, we can sell my Pokémon cards.”
