Shopping in Her Sleep
Kelly Knipes is a 42-year-old British woman who suffers from a bizarre disorder where she shops in her sleep. While it might sound like a made-up story to hide her shopping addiction, it’s a verified medical condition in her case. It also might sound funny, but the nearly $4,000 in credit card debt she managed to rack up is everything but a laughing matter. It’s really upsetting and frustrating going to bed thinking, ‘I don’t know what the night is going to lead to,’” Sleeping has never come particularly easy for Kelly. For years, she has suffered from sleep apnea, a condition causing disrupted breathing patterns during sleep. Additionally, each of her three children suffers from a set of disabilities, from epilepsy to deafness and learning disabilities. As such, she doesn’t want to sleep too soundly, lest she miss a child needing something. After the birth of her first child, Kelly started sleepwalking. From there, her unconscious behavior kept getting more and more unusual. She would wake up to find all her windows and doors open, or her furniture moved around. Finally, Kelly started making online purchases while fast asleep. In 2018, she received an official diagnosis of parasomnia caused by her sleep apnea.
Parasomnias can range from sleepwalking to talking in your sleep to night terrors — and sleep shopping. Knipes, who runs an events service, has been a very active nighttime shopper. She has bought a wide variety of things, from small to big. Some unplanned purchases she has found on her doorstep have included things like salt and pepper shakers, instructional textbooks for teachers, cans of paint. I would never actually have to put any credit card details when I was buying things online because it was all saved on my phone,” said Kelly. Altogether, she managed to accumulate $3,800 in credit card debt. “I kept the tins of paint and the playhouse because when that arrived and my kids saw it, I felt I couldn’t return it,” she said. Knipes seems to have taken her credit card off her phone now and has paid off her debt. But that’s not the end of her worries.
As you can see from the eclectic items she purchased, Kelly wasn’t a particularly discerning consumer when sleep shopping. That led her to fall for online identity fraud. “I gave them all my details, then when I woke up, they had taken $317 out of my bank account,” she said. Kelly believes the original scammer has sold her personal information, because she’s had to wrangle with additional fraud attempts ever since. “I’ve had to cancel cards a few times, and I’ve had lots of people try to take money out of my bank,” she confessed. Kelly believes her condition isn’t the end of the world. “It’s just something that happens that I have to deal with, but it’s the least of my problems. In the grand scheme of things, I just focus on my children.”
Amazon wonders
Just a warning if you’re buying a watch on Amazon.
I learned the hard way that if it says you can swim with it, this only applies if you can already swim without it.
What’s the number one item shipped by Amazon?
Cardboard boxes.
Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon.
Quit when he was in his Prime.
My wife didn’t order anything from Amazon yesterday.
So the courier guy knocked on the door today to check if we were OK.
June 11th Birthdays
1989 – Claire Holt, 1999 – Saxon Sharpino, 2000 – Kaitlyn Nacon, 1989 – Maya Moore
1933 – Gene Wilder, 1911 – Jacques Cousteau, 1956 – Joe Montana, 1960 – Hugh Laurie