‘Klarna lost £1,000 I paid it – and blamed me for having fat fingers’
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Dear Katie,
Last year, I bought a dishwasher and washing machine from Hughes Electrical and decided to pay using the “buy now pay later” credit facility offered by Klarna, which allowed me to spread the cost over one year.
In October this year, I contacted Klarna as I wanted to pay off the loan early and in full. The customer services person I spoke to gave me the sort code, account number and references to use and I sent two payments, totalling over £1,000 for the appliances.
Now, Klarna is saying it cannot find my payments and is trying to pursue me for the balance. My bank, Barclays, has confirmed the payments went through, yet I continue to receive automated demands for a debt I consider cleared.
I am 100 per cent sure I got the payment details correct. I don’t know what else I can do? I feel Klarna’s actions are completely appalling.
I have cancelled my direct debit with it, but I am very concerned that its continued demands for payment will impact my credit rating. It is also causing me so much stress.
I have called Klarna so many times, and sent numerous emails, but I am not seeming to be getting anywhere.
– RM, Cambridgeshire
Dear reader,
Klarna kept insisting these two payments (£569.71 and £496.14) were not showing on its system. But you are absolutely sure you sent the money to the right place.
The only thing I knew for sure at this point was that someone was wrong, and I set about finding out who.
After I made contact with Klarna, it sent you another email saying it had concluded its investigation and was not upholding your complaint.
This was because it believed its agent had provided the correct bank details and references for each of your orders on the phone. It didn’t say this explicitly, but it was clearly convinced you’d made a fat-fingered typo when making the payment, meaning it had not been received, and explaining why it couldn’t find it.
This sent you into a rage, but then it did an about-turn, saying it had reevaluated your case and had decided to uphold it after all. Why? Well, unbelievably after all that, it had found the payment. Both you and I were baffled as to how it had been unable to until now, and what had suddenly changed.
Klarna explained it was because you had opted to use a manual payment through your bank account, instead of a direct debit or payment through its app, which it “always advises”, apparently.
It also blamed “an error” within its systems in matching your manual payment to your account, due to your bank adding extra characters to the payment reference. This was in no way your fault, and Klarna said it was “working to fix the issue”.
Klarna has also admitted its customer service team could have worked much better to help you quicker, and is updating its processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
It’s now apologised and paid you £100 compensation, which you’re happy with. Your credit score will be unaffected by Klarna’s utter incompetence during this episode but I suspect your ego, at being falsely accused of being unable to make a payment correctly, will remain bruised for a while.
A Klarna spokesman said: “We’re very sorry for the inconvenience caused to the customer, but can confirm the issue has now been resolved. We have offered him compensation as a gesture of goodwill. We’re working on fixing the issue to ensure this does not happen again.”
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