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Audio By Carbonatix
Can you recall the most you’ve ever spent on a single beer? I can’t. Partially because it was years ago at The Toronado in San Francisco but also because I’d been drinking all day before ordering that rare 2-liter Belgium beer that I still have a picture somewhere of me passed TF out and clutching the empty bottle on the train back to Santa Clara.
I remember it was A LOT but by ‘a lot’ I mean somewhere around $100-$200, not $100,000…And the bottle was big enough for me and a few friends to get several beers each. Also, while I don’t remember the specifics of that night I remember the beer was 100% worth it because it was incredible.
This dude in Manchester, England paid $99,983 for a single beer. The most expensive beer ever sold. Was it worth it? Absolutely not. It was only supposed to cost him £5.50 but they fucked up the charge, twice, and instead of stopping the charge before the bank processed it the money was taken from his account and it STILL hasn’t been returned.
He shared his story on Twitter about how he got hosed by this hotel in the UK and how the person who sold him the beer laughed in his face as he tried to figure out what the hell had happened. I guess the silver lining here is he’s now the guy who purchased the most expensive beer in history. But that doesn’t really soften the blow of having $100K removed from your account which included a $2k+ processing fee.
He’s since been refunded the fee but the other $97,000+ hasn’t been deposited back into his account yet. Here’s his story:
See this beer? That is the most expensive beer in history.
I paid $99,983.64 for it in the Malmaison Hotel, Manchester the other night.
Seriously.Contd. pic.twitter.com/Q54SoBB7wu
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
It’s a good beer. 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 $100,000, then I am inclined to agree with you.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
It was a quiet Sunday night when I made the fateful purchase. I asked a young barman if he had anything that was not an American craft beer or Eurolager. I wanted something a little British.
He had no idea. Said he’d only worked 6 shifts at the establishment.— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
He said he would get the senior bar attendant. She suggested Heineken, so I knew she had no idea what she was talking about. Just quietly, it annoys me a bit when people show no interest in their job, but I persisted politely and opted for the very English IPA pictured above.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
Anyway, 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.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
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.
I insisted.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
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. Three days later I’m still waiting.— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
Then came the call from home. The sum of $99,983.64 had been removed from our account.
And, there’d been a transaction fee of $2,499.59 to add to the pain.
The fee has been refunded but not the larger amount.— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
It really is baffling that both Visa and our bank would allow such an amount to go through unquestioned.
And, guess what? They agree that there is a refund in the system but it will take 9 working days for it to go through.
In the mean time there’s a massive hole in my finances
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
A Visa spokesperson gave this quote when asked why this charge wasn’t flagged:
“Visa does not make decisions to authorise payments. It is the responsibility of a cardholder’s bank who will make a decision based on a number of factors including the funds available.
“We will work with both the cardholder’s and merchant’s banks to help resolve this error.”
Weird flex but ok https://t.co/VLN2Rt1qfp
— leash (@alishiaelliman) September 6, 2019
It is pretty astonishing that Visa would allow this charge to process. I have to think there are very few instances in the world where a credit card wouldn’t flag this without at least alerting the card’s owner beforehand.
If someone is regularly making 5 or 6-figure charges on their card then it might not get flagged but this doesn’t seem like the kind of person who is charging $200,000+ private jets on the regular or dropping $150K at 1Oak on the weekends. This is a cricket journalist from Australia who was traveling in the UK.
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