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The circumstances surrounding Amazon’s sales to both Kristine and Ethan were highly irregular. Amazon has a policy that people under the age of 18 can only use the service with the involvement of a parent or guardian. However, Kristine, at just sixteen, had created her own account to purchase the poisonous chemical and was never asked her age when she set up the account. The package delivered to Kristine’s home was addressed without a last name. It read only “Kristine.”
Seventeen-year-old Ethan used the account that belonged to his mother, Nikki, to purchase Sodium Nitrite. When Nikki received the email receipt for the purchase, she immediately called Amazon’s customer service to tell them there must have been some mistake and that nobody at her home had ordered the item. Amazon told Nikki the order was cancelled. Instead, the Sodium Nitrite was delivered to her home four days later.