‘We almost had a heart attack’: Four-year-old orders $1,139 of ice cream

A four-year-old boy left his Sydney family gobsmacked after ordering more than 1,000 Australian dollars' worth of ice cream on a food delivery app, including a personalised birthday cake and tubs of his favourite flavours.

Christian King used his father's phone to order $1,139 worth of ice cream and cakes from Australian chain Gelato Messina on Uber Eats on Monday.

His father, Kris King, had given his son his phone to keep him distracted while his sister's touch football match was happening. He said his son warned him he had "something on the way", but he didn't believe him until an UberEats delivery driver called his wife. It was at that moment he realised what was going on.

“First of all I thought it was $139. And then I really looked at it and it was $1,139 and we almost had a bloody heart attack. I flicked through the screen about 30 times. That’s how long the order was, it was like 99 cakes.”

Will those prawns you’re buying be Irish? Not a chance

---

Taste test: The best – and worst – supermarket finger food we’ve tried this holiday season

---

Fromage fictions: The 14 biggest cheese myths debunked

---

“He actually told me he ordered a birthday cake for himself, and I didn’t even believe it. I had steam coming out of my ears first of all, screaming his name down the street. He ran to his room before I told him so.”

King said the order included multiple cakes and tubs of Christian’s favourite flavours from Messina. “He ordered two of the tiramisu, two of the mushroom cake, the chocolate log, he chose the ones he wanted. He didn’t just choose randomly. He also ordered eight or nine 1.5 litre tubs of strawberries and cream and double dolche gelato. It’s a little cheeky boy just ordering what he liked.”

Christian’s birthday is in January, but his father believed he was planning ahead. “We order stuff off Uber Eats every day, and he’s obviously seen us do it all the time, but he’s never done it and submitted it; $1,200 later, it was a big shock to the system.”

The enormous order was delivered to the fire station where King, a firefighter, had last made an order. The firefighters on duty accepted the order and removed everything they had in the fridge to accommodate it.

Uber Eats agreed to refund the order when King and his wife explained what had happened. The delivery company “weren’t aware of anything wrong, but really we thought there should have been something in place. It was a very unusual order. We thought someone would question a $1,000 order of random things, and a personalised birthday cake that said happy birthday.”

King initially told his son Santa wasn't coming this year as a result of the order, but it appears the situation has changed. "The icing on the cake was when Uber Eats said we'll give you your money back. He's back in the good books, and Santa is coming again." – Guardian