A stunned late-night reveller has been left out of pocket after mistakenly forking out £666.50 for a veggie burger - which should have cost £6.50. Toby Wilson, 35, unknowingly spent hundreds on the veggie burger and chips meal at food truck Efe's Kebab Kitchen on his way home from a night out.
And he only clocked the whopping miscalculation when he checked his account balance days later to find it had dropped “significantly”. But when the HR manager approached business owner Ahmed Abdullah about his huge card payment, he said the vendor told him to seek a refund through his bank.
More than a month later, he claims the pair remain at a stalemate over any possible repayment of the costly late-night dinner. Toby explicitly believes 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 a local paper that he had wanted Toby to talk to his bank for safety reasons, adding: “This is the legal way”. Toby said he'd travelled to York for a pals gathering just before Christmas last year and had purchased the pricey meal at around 11pm.
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.
“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 to visit the kebab van and ask the owner if they wouldn’t mind refunding him the extra £660 he’d paid. But after the pair began exchanging texts, Toby claims Mr Abdullah didn't 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."
