Can I Sue for 1p?

dmg24

gustavlebon wrote: »

This is a brilliant idea. It reminds me of when my buddy used to use telephone banking to transfer 1p to me after I bought him a penny sweet. The lady on the phone couldn't stop laughing.

A friend used to do that to me with online banking ... he thought it was hilarious until he accidentally transferred £100! :T

chuckley

same thing happened to me with mobiles.co.uk fone was £79.99 got charged £80. invoice slip said 1p - Special delivery.

y u are cryin over 1p is MADNESS. go down to ur local starbucks and pick it out the pot if u need 1p. or maybe search the back of ur sofa.

LMAO!

RabbitMad

FBThree wrote: »

Um - I know a lot of people are suggesting that the person that has been overcharged by 1p forgets it but ..... what if the company that overcharges by 1p does it to every customer thinking that no-one will bother complaining?

After all - didn't a computer geek make millions by stealing just 1/2 cent worth of interest from every bank interest transaction his program dealt with?

I think you're thinking of Richard Pryor in Superman 3.

geordie_joe

FBThree wrote: »

After all - didn't a computer geek make millions by stealing just 1/2 cent worth of interest from every bank interest transaction his program dealt with?

There is an urban myth (AFAIK) that the banks in the US used to round up payments and keep the extra.

If you bought something for $9.78 they would take $10 from your account and keep the extra 22 cents for themselves.

Someone reprogrammed the computer to take 1cent of the 22 cents and send it to his account. The bank caught him and tried to prosecute him for theft.

The bank was told that they couldn't prosecute him because he wasn't stealing money from the bank, he was stealing it from the banks customers. What they would have to do is contact each person they had stolen the odd cents from and explain that the bank had been stealing all the odd cents from their accounts for years. But now someone was stealing that money off the bank and would they now help them prosecute him.

The bank decided that sacking the person was punishment enough, and they wouldn't prosecute him or try to get the money back.

I believe it's an urban myth, but if it's not.......well done to the guy and I hope he enjoys the money.

1jim

what company was this, to be honest I would ask for it back as well, tight !!!! probably but if their tone was like this I would keep going until they repaid it, but name and shame is the way to go now

RabbitMad

paramount-zone.co.uk

1jim

I emailed them to ask about overcharging and this isthe reply

"Hi

We are certainly not in the habit of charging more than we state we will charge.If there has been an error please ask your friend to give us the details in order that we can rectify the situation.

Please only reply to this email if you have another question.

Kind regards,
"

so I would email them again as per their advice

RabbitMad

That's interesting as part of the email that I took offence to was the

"Please only reply to this email if you have another question."

Bit. It looks like that is a standard reply. However the rest of their email was quite rude too.

I'll reply to the email asking for my penny back.

bandraoi

geordie_joe wrote: »

There is an urban myth (AFAIK) that the banks in the US used to round up payments and keep the extra.

If you bought something for $9.78 they would take $10 from your account and keep the extra 22 cents for themselves.

Someone reprogrammed the computer to take 1cent of the 22 cents and send it to his account. The bank caught him and tried to prosecute him for theft.

The bank was told that they couldn't prosecute him because he wasn't stealing money from the bank, he was stealing it from the banks customers. What they would have to do is contact each person they had stolen the odd cents from and explain that the bank had been stealing all the odd cents from their accounts for years. But now someone was stealing that money off the bank and would they now help them prosecute him.

The bank decided that sacking the person was punishment enough, and they wouldn't prosecute him or try to get the money back.

I believe it's an urban myth, but if it's not.......well done to the guy and I hope he enjoys the money.

1978 book called Computer Capers, apparently talked about it, and according to this article, it's been known to happen:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953341,00.html

saving_junky

If they overcharged you by a penny I believe that when you and company make an agreement to a purchase, that constitutes a contract, they will charge you x amount and give you the goods, if they then overcharge you but won't refund it, they are in breach of contract and you "should" be able to return the goods at their expense and void therefore void the contract.

However, getting them to agree to that, and if they didn't then getting any complaints ombudsmen, court etc to be interested in 1p is prob highly unlikely.

I'm the same though, why should they be 1p in credit at my expense............as someone else said, if they're doing it to every customer and they say have 1000 customers a day that's £10 a day, £3650 a year...........

But it has made me laugh.........I thought I argued down to the last cent, but not quite that much!

I got overcharged for 2 croissants in Costa Coffee, asked for plain, got given almond, took them back and got them changed, at the time I asked if there was any difference in price, and was told no, I couldn't see any price lists anywhere but it just struct me as prob not correct. So I phoned up the next day to find that I'd been overcharged by 80p............I asked them how they were going to sort it out, and they said the only thing they could do was to give it to me in person......when I pointed out it was going to cost me £2 bus fare to come up to claim my 80p (which they should/could have given me at the time if they'd given me the correct info) the manager agreed to give me £2.80. Came up in the car instead, parked for £1 plus wear, tear and petrol and ended up in credit, nice result! :D