Three-year-old buys £7k digger on web auction

A three-year-old girl bought a full-size excavating digger on an auction website for 20,000 New Zealand dollars (£7,600), it is reported today.

Pipi Quinlan woke up early at home in Stanmore Bay, near Auckland, New Zealand, and decided to play with the family computer while her parents slept, the Rodney Times said.

She came across the auction site TradeMe, which her mother had bookmarked, and after a few clicks of the mouse she unwittingly made the top bid for a Kobelco digger, the most recent item listed on the homepage.

Her mother Sarah Quinlan knew about it only when she got up and went to the computer. She talked about it today to BBC News.

"I saw an e-mail from TradeMe saying I had won an auction and another e-mail from the seller saying something like 'I think you'll love this digger'."

She assumed she had won a Lego toy set she had been looking for, and "it wasn't until I went back and re-read the e-mails that I saw $20,000 and got the shock of my life", she said.

Quinlan explained the error to TradeMe and the seller. The seller did not see the funny side. But TradeMe has reimbursed the seller's costs and the digger has now been sold to an adult.

Rodney Times article