Six-year-old Arkansas girl uses her sleeping mom's fingerprints to unlock iPhone and buy 13 Pokemon gifts

Ashlynd Howell may be just six years old, but she's old enough to use her sleeping mother's fingerprint to unlock her iPhone and shop on Amazon for Pokemon. Photos / Russell Smith, Getty Images

A 6-year-old Arkansas girl used her sleeping mother's fingerprint to unlock her iPhone and buy US$250 worth of Pokemon toys on Amazon.

Bethany Howell of Maumelle, Arkansas, had fallen asleep on the couch while her daughter was sitting nearby one recent evening.

It was just before Ashlynd's bedtime, and an exhausted Bethany wanted to watch a movie before tucking her daughter in, Daily Mail reports.

"We laid there and two minutes into the movie I fell asleep because I was wiped out," told Daily Mail Online.

"On this occasion, my phone was sitting on the coffee table next to the couch,: she said.

"Ashlynd picked it up and used my thumb to open the phone."

Bethany said that she has allowed her daughter to use her mobile device before in order to log in to apps like YouTube or Netflix.

"Instead she decided to open Amazon," Bethany said.

"I didn't know she knew what Amazon was."

The next day, Bethany was shocked to look at her Amazon account and discover that someone had bought 13 Pokemon gifts for a total of US$250.

"We thought someone had hacked our account," she told Daily Mail Online.

When she noticed that all of the gifts were addressed to her home, it dawned on her that her clever daughter may be responsible.

"Ashlynd must've had my phone and ordered things," she said.

"I asked her if she was on my phone looking at Pokemon."

"Yeah, mommy, I was shopping," Ashlynd told her mother.

"Oh, you were?" Bethany said to her daughter.

She later learned that Ashlynd was able to fill in all the details of the order, including shipping address, because of the "auto-fill" feature that makes purchases easier and quicker for frequent shoppers.

Bethany's credit card details are already saved in the system because she is a subscriber to Amazon Prime.

All her daughter needed to do was open the app and click on the items she wanted.

Bethany was told that she was only allowed to return four of the items.

She broke the news to her daughter by telling her that she couldn't keep all of the gifts because Santa Claus knew of how she had bought them in the first place.