It's just one of the astonishing yet inevitable things that can happen when our toddlers grab our smartphones and tap away. What else are babies buying?
Like a lot of kids, 14-month-old Sorella Stoute loves playing with her dad's cell phone. After all, what toddler doesn't love to push buttons? Sorella loves car keys and smartphones.
Harmless enough, or so everyone thought, until last month when dad got an email that made his stomach sink.
"I didn't realize anything took place until I got an email from eBay saying congratulations," said dad Paul Stoute.
Little Sorella, who can't even say the word "car," bought one. The 1962 Austin Healey Sprite, which she unwittingly bid on, through an eBay app, while playing with her dad's phone.
"Initial thoughts were panic. We're like, 'How do we get out of this?'" Stoute said.
The modern family can relate. ABC viewers on Facebook shared all kinds of stories - toddler shoppers gone wild.
"My son, 3 at the time, bought a Ford Ranger off eBay" -- they got out of it.
A 9-year-old bought 120 movies on eBay. A 5-year-old racked up $2,500 worth of downloads on his parents' iPad. Of course, most devices have parental controls, and in the worst cases, parents said they got out of having to pay.
The Stoutes had that chance, too, but decided the old Austin-Healey might not be so bad-price tag - $225. They're keeping it for little Sorella's 16th birthday.
"She decided, I think, to open the eBay app, and started clicking around. And one thing led to another, and we own a car," Stoute said. "She says, 'Sorella bought a car,' and I said, 'Yeah, right.' And she says, 'No, Sorella bought a car on eBay and we have to buy it.'"
Dad says he'd like to restore it. He just started a page on one of those fundraiser websites and hopes to have it in tip-top shape sometime.
"I've done a lot of body work in the past, like Bondo and stuff like that, but this is, another realm altogether, I'm just glad she didn't buy the $38,000 Porsche I was also looking at," Stoute said.
Since Sorella bought the car, her father has activated facial recognition technology and has a new pin code, just in case she ever gets the shopping bug again.
