‘I bought some Molton Brown soap, and then it raided my bank for £408’
Dear Katie,
Back in October, I spent £204 on Molton Brown products online via its website.
As expected, £204 left my bank account, but then, on November 3, Molton Brown removed another £204 from my account. Then it happened again on November 6.
Both of these payments, totalling £408, were taken without my permission. Molton Brown has blamed them on a computer error and I have received an email saying that it will refund the two extra payments in five to seven working days.
However, I do not think that this is acceptable. Surely Molton Brown should be refunding the money immediately? It has offered me 30pc off a future order, seemingly as some kind of compensation, which is laughable.
Were I to run into a financial emergency where I needed my £408, it is not sitting in my current account where it should be.
I have sent several emails to customer services asking for my money back sooner, but it hasn’t helped. In one email, it said not to worry, and not to contact them.
JW, Northamptonshire
Dear reader,
It only took a quick glance at Molton Brown’s Trustpilot reviews to see you were far from alone in having unauthorised funds leave your account after purchasing some of its products online.
Some 72pc of reviews are one-star, the lowest score, with a spate of customers complaining of money being taken from their bank accounts and not returned in recent days.
When I asked Molton Brown, it said that on November 3, its systems experienced a “technical error” whereby more than one payment was unintentionally requested from some customers, including you.
As soon as it realised this problem, it said, it “immediately took steps to identify who was impacted and contacted those customers affected and issued refunds as our main priority”.
It told me all refunds were issued by the end of the day on November 6, which was seven working days after the incident.
It said the reason why it might take this long to show in the customers’ accounts was due to “the processing time between our independent payment provider and the customer’s bank, which is outside Molton Brown’s control”.
However, 10 days later on November 16, Molton Brown let me know that it had heard from customers who had still not received their refund. And you were one of them.
It said: “This is a matter our executive leadership team is treating with the utmost seriousness, and a number of stakeholders have been urgently investigating the reason for the continued delay.”
It was revealed that the merchant bank that monitors and approves all transactions for Molton Brown had placed some of the genuine customer payments under fraud review, which meant they were held and not passed onto customers.
However, as I write this, all payments have now been released, which means that at long last, everyone now has their refunds. You finally received yours on November 17.
So in total, your money was gone for two weeks, which I agree, is ridiculous and utterly unacceptable.
Had you run into debt, or other tangible life problems caused by the lack of funds in your account, Molton Brown would arguably have been on the hook for reimbursement, which I’d have gladly enforced.
Similarly, other affected customers are entitled to consequential losses as a result of its actions, and should contact me for help if they need it.
In your case it was simply an annoyance, for which it has sent you two bottles of hand wash. A nice gesture this may be, although probably not enough to restore your faith in the company.
A Molton Brown spokesman said: “We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and want to thank our loyal customers for their patience and continued support.”
