TORONTO – A few simple keystrokes may end up costing one Minnesota family a lot of money after their eight-month-old somehow managed to book a rental car over the Internet.
That’s according to the Ellingson family, who say their son Daniel managed to confirm an online rental car booking with just a few innocent taps of the keyboard.
“It just happened so fast. It just happened so fast,” his mom, Mandy Ellingson, told WCCO News in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “He hit the enter button and booked our rental car. He bought us a $609 minivan for our vacation.”
The family say they were planning a trip to Hawaii a few weeks ago for which they had saved up for some time. They were comparing different rental car rates on various websites, including popular online travel site Priceline.com.
According to Mandy Ellingson, all their information including their credit card had been entered, and they were about to confirm the booking when husband Chad Ellingson got a call from his parents, advising them of a cheaper rate.
Mandy was about to close the page when she says little Daniel reached across and tapped a few keys – enough, apparently, to confirm the booking.
“I said, ‘Chad I think we just booked a rental car.’ He goes, ‘no we didn’t book a rental car!’” Mandy said. “I said, ‘no, Danny just booked a rental car.’”
So they called Priceline to ask for a refund, but were told they were out of luck – fine print on the company’s website specifically says all rental car bookings are non-refundable.
“Rental cars are non-refundable, non-transferable and non-changeable even if the reservation is not used.”
“You just spent double what you could have spent all because of one button,” Mandy said.
Now the family is on the hook for the $609 dollar bill, in addition to their other vacation expenses.
Needless to say, little Daniel isn’t allowed to “play” with the laptop keyboard anymore.
“The computer is no longer a fun toy to tap on,” Mandy said.
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