Teen Earns $15,000 for Puffy Chip She Found in a Bag of Doritos

A few days ago, 13-year-old Australian Rylee Stuart opened a package of Doritos and found a chip that didn't look like the others in the bag. So she did what just about any 13-year-old in that situation would do: she grabbed her phone, filmed a TikTok video of the "puffy" Dorito, and shared it on the app.

"I found a Puff Dorito!" she captioned the clip. "Is this valuable or should I just eat it? Tell me please." (As a quick aside, the TikTok's soundtrack is slightly NSFW.) Some commenters encouraged her to put the chip up for sale "for $5,000," so she downloaded the eBay app and typed up a quick listing for the puffy Dorito. (She also put the chip itself inside a plastic container, to ensure that it wasn't inadvertently crushed.)

The Dorito had a starting price of $0.99, but bidders drove that up to AU$20,000 ($14,750) before the high bid soared to an absolutely ridiculous AU$105,000 ($77,450). "I was about to eat it, and I thought I better save it for later," Stuart told 9News. "I saw $10,000 [on the eBay listing] and I screamed. Dad is saying that since he bought the packet [of Doritos] it's his chip, but I ate the packet, so I believe it is mine." The listing was eventually pulled from eBay, and that could've been the end of this weird story (and the end to what could've been a Hall of Fame family disagreement). But according to news.com.au, Doritos Australia heard about Stuart's puffy chip and short-lived eBay auction, and decided to celebrate her "entrepreneurship" and "ingenuity."

"It's been a whirlwind couple of days for Rylee and her family and we've loved following her story," the company's chief marketing officer Vandita Pandey said, according to the outlet. "We've been so impressed with Rylee's boldness and entrepreneurial spirit, so we wanted to make sure the Stuart family were rewarded for their creativity and love for Doritos." (Food & Wine has reached out to Doritos Australia for comment, but we have not yet received a response.)

That reward came in the form of an AU$20,000 (about $15,000 USD) gift from the snack brand to Stuart — which isn't a bad return on the $3 her dad paid for the bag of chips.

Stuart's story has caused several copycats to put their own puffy Doritos on eBay; as of this writing, there are seven active listings for puffed Doritos. The opening bids range from under a dollar to AU$367.98 ($271.75). Only one has received a bid, and the current price is 73 cents. Sorry to break it to everyone else, but Doritos probably isn't going to write you a check.