Indian-origin woman charged £4,586 for parking error in UK: 'It was surreal'
An Indian-origin woman was left 'in shock' after she was wrongly charged £4,586 for just two hours of parking at a multi-storey car park in Slough, UK, as reported by the BBC.
(Also read: UK woman dismisses symptoms as food poisoning, ends up losing 13 organs to rare cancer)
Yaditi Kava, 39, had taken her two daughters shopping at the Queensmere Observatory Shopping Centre on Friday, May 16. After the outing, she decided to grab dinner before heading home. Upon returning to the car park, she found the payment machines inaccessible, prompting her to pay at the exit barrier.
'I tapped my contactless card, then a message displayed saying I needed to enter my PIN,' she explained. 'I was in a rush, the girls were getting tired, and I did not see the number on the small card machine. The big display showed '4,5', so I thought it was £4.50.'
The barrier lifted, but moments later, she received a bank notification confirming a deduction of £4,586.
'To my shock, I saw that they had deducted not £4.50 but £4,586 from my account,' Kava said. 'It was surreal – I just couldn't fathom that they had taken that money.'
Kava said she had to wait until the following Monday to contact the shopping centre's manager, who acknowledged it was a fault with the payment machine. He issued a receipt on 19 May and assured her that the refund would be processed within 2–3 working days.
However, three weeks passed and the money still had not been returned.
According to the outlet, Kava reached out to the BBC Three Counties consumer rights programme, The JVS Show, hosted by Jonathan Vernon-Smith. 'It was a godsend – just one call from Jonathan, and the very next day, the money was back in my account,' she said. The full refund was successfully processed on Saturday, June 7.
(Also read: UK woman catches cheating husband through electric toothbrush: 'Data doesn't lie')
Kava, who is currently going through a divorce, revealed that she had been saving the money for legal expenses and had even considered cancelling her daughter's birthday party due to the ordeal.
Savills, the company managing the shopping centre, acknowledged the incident in a statement to the BBC, calling it 'an isolated incident' and confirming that a full refund had been processed.
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