Mum panics after '£8,000 charges' error

9:11am Tuesday 26th August 2008

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A TECHNICAL glitch led to panic for a Northwich mum who thought she faced £8,000 bank charges for being overdrawn by £30.

Mum-of-one Donna Gill got a letter from Barclays warning her that the amount would be debited from her account immediately but she later found out that an extra zero had been added to the sum, which should have just read £8.00.

It wasn’t funny during the hour when I was trying to get throught to them when I thought we wouldn’t be able to pay the rent and would be homeless.

Mum-of-one Donna Gill

The 28-year-old, who lives with her partner and two-year-old son Joshua in Park Road, Castle, said: “I just felt like the whole world was caving in.

“It’s laughable now – even banks make typing errors, no-one’s perfect.

“it wasn’t funny during the hour when I was trying to get throught to them when I thought we wouldn’t be able to pay the rent and would be homeless.”

Donna spent £14 worth of credit on her mobile phone trying to sort out the mistake, managing to cook and eat tea while she was on hold.

She said: “It’s a premium rate 0845 number so all my credit went.

“At first I was on hold for 20 minutes then when I got through I was cut off.

“The second time I was on hold for that long I cooked tea and ate it.

“It cost £14 to sort out an £8 charge but I was just so relieved to hear him say it was only £8.”

She was told that hundreds of letters had been sent out with similar errors.

A spokesman for Barclays said: “The good news is that clearly no-one has been debited that amount of money, Donna is a testament to that.

“All I can say is that we are aware of the situation and the matter has been resolved.

“It was a technical issue and we apologise and want to reassure customers they will not be charged that sum of money.”