Father’s £59,000 bill... for four rolls of wrapping paper
LIKE most parents, Dean Baker just couldn’t resist splashing out at Christmas time.
But when he checked his bank balance, he was shocked to find he had made a purchase for nearly £60,000.
Frantic inquiries revealed he had been charged the sum for just four rolls of wrapping paper and a pack of gift cards on December 22.
An assistant at the Card Factory shop in Birmingham had accidentally arranged for £59,416 to come out of Mr Baker’s account instead of £5.94, when he handed over his debit card and punched in his PIN without checking.
The father of two, 32, complained his Christmas had been ruined as his account was frozen and he was unable to use his card to buy last-minute presents for daughters Eden, seven, and 18-monthold Harriet.
The cable engineer, from Erdington, Birmingham, said: ‘The girl on the till was a trainee. When I first put my card in the machine to pay she said it hadn’t
‘We had to beg relatives for food’
worked and asked me to do it again, so I did. I didn’t think of it any more.’
He only became aware there was a problem when his card was declined at a restaurant where he had lunch on Christmas Eve. ‘I went to a cashpoint nearby and couldn’t believe my eyes when the balance came up on the screen as being nearly £60,000 overdrawn,’ he said.
Mr Baker, who is married to IT worker Joanne, immediately contacted his bank, TSB.
He was initially told the money might not be refunded until January 12, leaving him unable to buy food or petrol.
He took time off work to try to resolve the issue, but the funds have now been returned to him after a local newspaper became involved.
But it was too late to salvage his family Christmas.
‘I was supposed to be buying an iPad for Eden but obviously I couldn’t do that and we ended up having to beg food off relatives to pull a Christmas dinner together,’ Mr Baker said.
He complained about being ‘passed from pillar to post’ by TSB and Card Factory when he contacted them about the error, which meant he was charged more than 10,000 times what he should have paid.
‘ I’m disgusted by how the whole thing has been handled. I have barely been able to sleep through the worry of it all,’ he added. ‘People at Card Factory had promised to phone back on a number of occasions but never did and the bank initially said it could not do anything either.’
Last night Mr Baker received an apology from TSB.
A spokesman said: ‘We apologise for the inconvenience that Mr Baker has been caused. We have been in frequent contact with Card Factory and are now pleased to confirm that Mr Baker’s money has been refunded.’
The bank also confirmed that Mr Baker had not incurred any overdraft charges or late payment penalties.
A Card Factory spokesman also apologised for the inconvenience, adding: ‘We can confirm that an administrative error made in our Erdington store on December 22 led to a significant overpayment by a customer.
‘We became aware of the error on December 23 through our card service provider and acted immediately to initiate a reversal of the transaction.’
In a similar mishap earlier this year, a teenager was charged nearly £180,000 for a pizza.
Nathaniel Bolwell, 19, used his debit card to pay what he thought was a mere £ 17.99 charge at a Domino’s in Newport, Gwent, in July.
But he was later horrified to discover £179,932.32 had been taken from his account.
Mr Bolwell, a packer at a food company, was later told that a bank card authorisation code had accidentally been added to the price of the takeaway.