Instead of purchasing a used Mercedes-Benz A-Class for the £18,000 ($23,337) it was worth, 25-year old Francesca Brady of Camberley, Surrey, ended up being charged £36,000 ($46,674) because of a widespread glitch.
The woman and her mother went in to buy the car on August 29, the very same day in which this error occurred due to an issue with a card terminal run by Cardnet, as reported by the BBC. Eventually, the two were reimbursed by Mercedes.
According to Lloyds Banking Group, all affected customers have since been refunded, as just under 5% of Cardnet’s machine transactions were affected on that specific day.
Miss Brady only figured out that she had been charged twice when her mother called her on August 31, two days after the purchase was made.
“By the time I got all her messages and got in contact with Mercedes, the account team was closed for the weekend,” she said. “When I checked her account and noticed it had been charged twice, I completely freaked out. My initial reaction was horror and then when I found out there was nothing Mercedes could do until the Monday – I felt lost.”
The woman went on to say that being double-charged for the car left the account overdrawn by £16,000 ($20,744), which resulted in extra charges.
“Mercedes were very helpful in the end, they sent me an email on Monday saying not to worry and the money was back in the account. They said they were more than willing to pay us for the extra charges we incurred as well. I think we were the only people to spend that much on that day, it was bad luck.”
She could probably say that again. Spending new E-Class money on a pre-owned A-Class should be the very definition of a bad deal.
![](https://www.carscoops.com/wp-content/themes/carscoops/assets/images/icons/arrow.png"){kind=icon}