A mum has spoken of her shock at a whopping bill after she was charged nearly £10,000 – for a BURGER KING meal.
Gobsmacked Elbie Todd, 51, was at a airport with her two children when she was charged the bumper sum for a Whopper Steakhouse burger, regular fries, regular coke and two portions of chilli bites.
The meals should have come to £9.47 – but after handing over her card in a busy queue, she was told it was declined.
She embarrassingly had to pay with some cash she scraped together from her two children, Wendy, 29, and Robbie, 28.
But it wasn’t until she got home later that she realised the cashier had tried to put through a £9,000 payment for the meal.
Elibie, who works in finance, said: “I had taken my son to Luton Airport as he was flying to Croatia.
“The three of us – my daughter, son and I – decided that we should have something to eat.
“My daughter thought said she wanted a Burger King so we went there and ordered.
“The man behind the till used the card machine and I put the card in. He typed the amount and I stupidly just put my pin in.
“We waited and waited and then he said to me that my card had been declined.
“I was embarrassed because my card had been declined.”
Mrs Todd, from Isle of Wight, then scraped together some money to pay for the meal.
She asked for her receipt that the Burger King employee had attempted to screw up.
“He scrunched it up but I asked for it,” she said.
“He looked at me and gave me the receipt back – I put it away and didn’t check it.
“It was only when I got home that evening and I went through my purse that I realised what had happened. I went ice cold.”
After phoning her bank, Mrs Todd found out that they had immediately declined the transaction as it was abnormally large.
However, she says that she has learnt from the incident to always check the bill as the transaction may have gone through with another high amount.
“My family keep joking and saying if you can afford a burger for nine grand, what else can you buy,” said Mrs Todd.
“But it rings alarm bells – if it was, say, £74, it would’ve gone through.
“And how did it get to that specific amount – where did it come from?
“I would go to Burger King again but I will always be wary when I use a chip and pin.”
“I wonder how many burgers I could buy for nine grand,” she added.
Burger King has so far not responded to request for comment.
