Holidaymaker suffers spot of double trouble
A simple spelling error on an email address almost led John Meikle into paying double for a holiday. At the beginning of last month, he paid £420 as the final instalment on a cottage break in Norfolk via online transactions system PayPal. The following day, he checked with the recipient and discovered no money had come through. “I realised there was a spelling mistake in the email address I had used but the £420 had already been taken from my bank account and I couldn’t get it back,” said John, who is originally from Glasgow but now lives in Middlesbrough. “I immediately contacted PayPal by phone. An agent told me he would cancel the payment and that I would have it refunded within five days.” However, John said this never happened and he then spent a frustrating few weeks trying to get the matter resolved with PayPal. “I tried phoning, emailing and contacting them by Facebook Messenger but no-one was listening.” John, 75, went on the holiday and paid the £420 final payment to the cottage owner again – this time by cheque. “At this point I was £840 down and still no sign of getting my original payment back from PayPal. I was beginning to think it had gone for good.” In frustration, he wrote to Raw Deal and we asked PayPal to investigate. Within days John got his £420 back and an apology from the company. A PayPal spokesman said: “The money was sent to an email address that doesn’t exist. “It was being held by us as part of a 30-day grace period, which acts as security net for our customers. It would have been paid back to John after that period. However, when it was brought to our attention we were happy to speed up the process and immediately make the refund.” John thanked Raw Deal for stepping in and quickly solving his problem.