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What you need to know

  • A London woman was charged £1,599 for a bunch of bananas by a faulty in Marks & Spencer.
  • In a hurry, the woman used Apple Pay and the payment went through because it has no limit.
  • She has since been refunded and compensated.

A London woman was charged more than $2,200 (£1,599) by a faulty till for a bunch of bananas in UK supermarket chain Marks & Spencer, whilst using Apple Pay (which has no limit) to pay for her shopping.

As reported by The Mirror:

Cymbre Barnes, from London, claims she popped into a branch of M&S on her way to work to grab some food for the day, including a £1 bunch of bananas.

In a rush, she used Apple Pay at the till (which has no limit on the amount you can spend) and didn't realise until it was too late that there had been a big mistake.

To Barnes' horror, a faulty till which caused an "isolated payment error" charged the poor woman £1,599 (more than $2,200) for the bananas. Her total shop should have cost four pounds but ended up being £1,602.

Barnes said "I was in a rush before work so when I got to self-checkout I used contactless and it was instant. I did a double-take when I saw the screen but by then my receipt was already being printed. It was too late."

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The fault had nothing to do with Apple Pay, but rather the M&S self-service checkout the woman was using, however, because Apple Pay does not have a payment limit in most supported UK retailers the payment went through no problem, leaving Barnes £1,602 out of pocket with nothing but bananas to show for it.

Because the only till in the shop was reportedly broken, Barnes had to walk 45 minutes to the nearest M&S to claim a refund. Marks & Spencer said they have contacted the customer to apologize and offer a refund.