A lot of parents have different opinions and rules when it comes to cellphone use and screen time limits for their kids. Mom Holly LaFavers lets her 8-year-old son Liam play on her phone sometimes. Liam will sometimes scroll through different products on Amazon without making any purchases.
But recently, Holly checked her bank account and saw an unexpected $4,200 charge from Amazon. She later found out that her son had accidentally ordered 70,000 Dum Dums suckers.
The mom had just gotten paid, so her bank balance shocked her.
When Holly checked her bank balance on Sunday, May 4, 2025, she “immediately panicked,” she told Good Morning America. Though she had just gotten paid, her account was somehow “in the red.”
Attempting to figure out what happened, the mom noticed “the $4,200 charge to Amazon.” Naturally, she checked her Amazon account to “see what had happened.”
Her son ordered 30 large boxes of Dum Dums.
Holly normally doesn’t have an issue with her son scrolling through Amazon, as he knows he’s not allowed to actually place an order. This time was clearly different, as 30 boxes of Dum Dums were delivered to the family’s house. When she asked her son about the order, she found out that he was just trying to do something nice for his friends. “He told me that he wanted to have a carnival, and he was ordering the Dum Dums as prizes for his carnival,” the mom told NBC News. “He was being friendly, he was being kind to his friends.”
She told Good Morning America that her son, who lives with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, could tell that his mom was upset but didn’t fully understand what had happened. “He doesn’t really understand that [by] buying all of that, the money came out of my account,” she explained.
Luckily, everything worked out in the end.
Though the mom “panicked” at first, her perspective has shifted as she looks back on what happened. Addressing other parents who might run into similar problems, she said, “I can say now that I’m on the other side of it, don’t panic.”
“Everything will eventually work out,” she continued. “Just have faith that everything will be OK, because it will be fine, and make sure you lock your phone.”
In Holly’s case, both Amazon and people in her community helped her resolve the issue. In a social media post, the mom wrote, “After a long day of working with the bank and talking to a few news stations Amazon called and they are refunding my money.”
Before Amazon offered her a refund, multiple people and local businesses offered to purchase boxes of Dum Dums from her.
Holly told Good Morning America that the amount of support she received from her community in Somerset, Kentucky, was “amazing.”
