Easy For Kids To Buy Alcohol Online

Legal Issues

from the oops dept

For years, one of the worries about offering wine and other alcohol online for sale was that it would make it easier for kids to get alcohol. However, the various e-commerce sites that sold alcohol all claimed they had strict procedures to stop it from happening. A quick test by Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly and some college kids put that theory to the test and discovered it was quite easy for underage people to get alcohol online – and some fairly well-known companies may take the fall. The various sites did little to confirm the age of a buyer, and delivery companies FedEx, UPS and DHL often ignored required procedures that the boxes be signed for by someone over 21. In some cases, they even just left the boxes in front of a door without ever getting a signature – even if the box made it clear that a signature by someone over 21 was required.