A fast food customer who mistakenly paid £666.50 for a veggie burger and chips which should have cost £6.50 will get his money back, business owner confirms.
Toby Wilson, 35, from Manchester, unknowingly spent hundreds of pounds on the veggie burger and chips at food truck Efe’s Kebab Kitchen on his way home from a night out in York.
He did not spot the additional two sixes added to his bill and he only realised the mistake when he checked his account balance days later to find it had dropped ‘significantly’.
When the HR manager amicably approached business owner Ahmed Abdullah about his significant card payment, he initially said the vendor told him to seek a refund through his bank.
But business owner Ahmed Abdullah says he has now agreed to repay Toby back the £660 he mistakenly overspent for his veggie burger and chips meal after confirming that the money had reached his account.
Toby Wilson, 35, from Manchester, unknowingly spent £666.50 on a take away after a night out with friends in December
Ahmed Abdullah, the business owner of Efe’s Kebab Kitchen in York, has now agreed to refund the money to Toby
Speaking about his decision, he said: ‘I called the card reader company. The payment has been made to my account. They say the customer needs to send me his details, or he can come with his bank card to the business.’
More than a month later, Toby will finally receive his money back after the ordeal.
Toby believed no fraudulent activity has taken place but said the initially ‘funny’ saga had caused him unending weeks of ‘stress’.
He said: ‘It’s very frustrating. Admittedly, at the start, it was a bit of a funny story. I thought it would be quickly sorted out and the banks would go, ‘Yep, it’s an error.’
‘But the bank is very slow at doing things. They said, ‘have you got a receipt?’ The human aspect of it is I don’t. No one has a receipt for things like that.
‘I have a mortgage and bills to pay. It is just very worrying. The point is the money is mine, and it’s a significant amount.’
Business owner Ahmed Abdullah told The York Press that he had wanted Toby to talk to his bank for safety reasons, he said: ‘I would like them to deal with the bank – it’s safer for them and me, and this is the legal way’.
Toby, who grew up in York, said he’d travelled to the city for a friendly gathering just before Christmas last year and had purchased the pricey meal at around 11 pm.
He said: ‘I was out on December 23 for a sort of friends reunion. We all live in different parts of the country but go back to York. We do it every year.
‘I am a non-drinker. Maybe it would be different if someone was drunk and just stumbled into to get a kebab and got it all wrong. But that’s very much not the case.
More than a month later, he claims the pair remain at a stalemate over any possible repayment
‘I just ordered a veggie burger and chips, and I looked at my bank balance a couple of days later, and I was like: ‘What’s going on? It’s significantly lower.’
‘It was like: ‘No way, this can’t be real!’
Toby asked a friend in York to visit the kebab van and ask the owner if they would not mind refunding him the extra £660 he’d paid.
However, after the pair began exchanging texts, Toby claims Mr Abdullah did not refuse to send him the money – he instead told him to speak to his bank leading to the stalemate.
Toby said: ‘Being a large conglomerate, they have rules to follow and things like that.
‘I explained the story to them, and they essentially need him to say ‘Yes, it’s happened.’
‘I’ve worked in hospitality, so I know how these things work. I know he’d be able to see it in his accounts and what that transaction would relate to.
‘It wouldn’t relate to anything, because I didn’t pay £666.50 for a veggie burger. He would be able to see that.’
Toby remains stunned that he managed to spend hundreds on a burger and chips meal that should have cost him a few pounds in loose change.
He said: ‘Sometimes I still look it now and think ‘Was it definitely that?’ I look at the bank transfer, and it’s got the name of his business.
‘It’s not like it’s an incorrect number. It’s been paid for by Apple Pay. You can see it goes into his bank account.
He added: ‘If it was £50, I might be able to go, ‘You know what, just keep it, I’m not bothered with the stress’ But it’s a lot.’
Mr Abdullah said on Friday he was speaking to his card machine company to see if they could provide proof £666.50 of Toby’s money had gone into his account.
He said: ‘I’m talking to them to prove that the money is in my account or not. If they prove it, or if they don’t prove it, I’m going to tell him.’
The manager of Efe’s Kebab Kitchen has acknowledged and apologised for the error.