Asda apologises for charging mother £930 for single banana
It's enough to send you bananas
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Nobody likes being overcharged for things.
In today’s murky economic climate, paying more money than you need to for even the cheapest of products is surely the epitome of injustice, not to mention it’s just downright irritating.
So, when Nottingham-based mother Bobbie Gordon discovered she’d been charged £930.11 for one banana that should’ve cost 11p, it’s fair to say that she was a little perplexed.
The mother-of-three had ordered her food shop online with Asda and was dismayed to find that she had been excessively overcharged - a mistake which the supermarket giant has since attributed to a “computer error”.
“Whoops, looks like we’ve slipped up here,” an Asda spokesperson said.
“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.”
Luckily, Gordon did not end up paying the extortionate bill as it was blocked by her credit card company's fraud team, who quite rightly suspected that something was up when they tried to process the payment.
"I told my seven-year-old 'you must really enjoy this banana, you must cherish every mouthful'," Gordon told the BBC.
Upon receiving the bill, she tweeted a picture of it alongside the offending banana, tagging Asda’s customer service team.
In the tweet, which has since been liked more than 2,400 times, she wrote: “My online delivery arrived. I’ve been charged £930.11 for one banana? I am going to be pretty livid if my card has been charged over £1k that my delivery note states!?! #asda #wtf #nottingham”.
Commenters revelled in the endless pun opportunities Gordon’s predicament made possible:
“A most unapeeling slip up,” wrote one person.
“Ahhh that's a *European* banana. The straight ones are only 11p. #bananagate #brexit,” joked another.
However, if the Twitter responses are anything to go by, it seems that the real mystery here is not why Gordon was so excessively overcharged for the fruit, but what her reasons were for ordering just a single banana, rather than a bunch.
“Who orders one banana?” asked several commenters.
It seems the perplexing case of #bananagate remains partly unsolved.
The Independent has contacted Gordon for comment.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments