- ITV Report
A cricket writer who was charged £ 55, 00 0 for a single ale believes he drank “the most expensive beer in history”.
Australian Peter Lalor was staying in a branch of Malmaison in Manchester ahead of thefourth Ashes Test matchwhen he bought a bottle of Deuchars IPA at the hotel bar.
The drink was supposed to be priced at £ 5. 50, but when he came to pay a member of staff it became apparent that something was not quite right.
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& mdash; Peter Lalor (@plalor) (September 5, 2019
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Writing on Twitter, Mr Lalor said: “I didn’t have my reading glasses when she presented me with a bill for the beer and when she had some problems with the machine I didn’t think much of it, but it was eventually resolved, I said I didn’t want a receipt and she went to leave.
“Something, however, made me ask: ‘How much did I just pay for that beer?’ She checked, covered her mouth, started to giggle and refused to tell me, saying only there had been a mistake and she would fix it.
“She kept giggling, I told her it needed to be fixed and fixed right now. She ran to get her manager who took the situation far more seriously and went about attempting to arrange a refund. She told me somebody would be in contact. ”
She checked, covered her mouth, started to giggle and refused to tell me, saying only there had been a mistake and she would fix it.
& mdash ; Peter Lalor (@plalor)September 5, 2019
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But Mr Lalor said nobody got in touch with him and he was unaware exactly how much had been taken from the account until he received a call from home.
“The sum of $ 99, 983. (£ 55, 300) had been removed from our account, ”he said.
“And, there’d been a transaction fee of $ 2, 499. (£ 1, 380) to add to the pain. The fee has been refunded but not the larger amount. ”
Mr Lalor said it was “baffling” that the transaction had been gone through “unquestioned”, and while he had been promised a refund in nine working days “in the meantime there’s a massive hole in my finances”.
Around an hour and a half after tweeting about the incident, Mr Lalor said the hotel had been in touch and were “being very helpful now
& mdash; Peter Lalor (@plalor)September 5, 2019
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A Malmaison spokesperson told PA news agency: “We are currently carrying out an investigation into what took place. We have been in contact with Peter to apologize and ensure this has been resolved as quickly as possible. ”
As for the beer itself, that at least was a success.
“It’s a good beer,” Mr Lalor tweeted. “The original version of it won a heap of awards, including the Supreme Champion Beer of Britain, but if you are thinking that no beer is worth the best part of 100, 00 0 dollars, then I am inclined to agree with you. ”
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