Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

When my 87-year-old mother, Patricia Collinson, was given an Alexa speaker by my sister, she was delighted to find she could ask it to say the Hail Mary. Every morning for a week the devout Catholic asked Alexa to recite the prayer. What she was less delighted to learn was that she had unwittingly ordered a premium subscription payable through Amazon to a private company called Catholic Prayers. Patricia, a retired district nurse in Hastings, does not own a computer, and does not know how to use one. She had signed up by voice command, without being presented with the kind of outline or terms and conditions that now comes as standard when you pay for things online.