Asda, one of the major supermarkets in the U.K., accidentally charged their customer, Bobbie Gordon, £930.11 ($US1,257.82) for a single banana. Luck was on Bobbie’s side, as her credit card company alerted her about exceeding the card’s bill limit and stopped the payment instantly, suspecting fraud.
Bobbie is a resident of Sherwood, Nottingham, and thought that the high price was most likely a typing error when she first looked at the electronic bill. A single banana generally only costs about 11p! She had placed the order for her groceries on Asda’s online store website.
When she noticed the price, she took to Twitter and tagged Asda’s Service Team and the BBC, Nottingham, to bring the matter to their notice. She tweeted: “My online delivery arrived. I’ve been charged £930.11 for 1 banana? I am going to be pretty livid if my card has been charged over £1k that my delivery note states!?! #asda #wtf #nottingham”
Bobbie Gordon’s receipt from Asda. (Image: The Derby Telegraph)
She initially didn’t believe the company would actually charge her the exorbitant sum for one banana and was surprised to receive an automated text from her credit card company about the high charge. She even jested with her child about the extremely expensive banana, asking her to savor each bite.
Asda has called Bobbie to apologize for the incident. They have admitted that it was a technical error and that it should have been corrected by the system directly. Asda, too, came up with a quip in response to the episode, and Asda’s spokeswomen commented: “Whoops, looks like we’ve slipped up here. Whilst our bananas are excellent, even we agree that they are not worth that much and clearly there has been a glitch in our system. We would like to thank Ms. Gordon for keeping her eyes peeled and flagging this error to us and we are investigating to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Once the news became viral, many commented on Asda’s slip on Twitter. Someone even suggested Bitcoin take a step back, as Bananacoin seemed to be the new trend. Someone else questioned how the error was the computer’s fault if the information was input into the system by a person. One user connected the incident to Brexit and the EU, commenting: “That’s a European banana. The straight ones are only 11p.” However, it was acknowledged and appreciated that Asda took responsibility, responded to the customer, and resolved the problem promptly.
Bobbie also didn’t expect her banana drama to be the most read piece of news on the BBC, and remarked on the consequence that an entire nation has spent the most time on such news.
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