'Post Office gave me kroner instead of euro'

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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A reader is left embarrassed on holiday when he discovers that he has been given the wrong currency

The Post Office owes me £400 and refuses to acknowledge its mistake. Norwegian kroner worth £200, which I never ordered, were given to me instead of my £600 worth of euros.

I still have the receipts. The mistake was discovered in France when I went with the Post Office envelope to pay for petrol, only to discover they had given me kroner – very embarrassing.

I phoned the Post Office I had bought them from and was told to hang on to the kroner and come into the Post Office on my return. By then there was a new manager and I did not get anywhere.

The Post Office’s accounts balanced as they gave out £600 of euros to someone else, who never returned them.

I feel the Post Office, with all the original evidence in my hands, should at least make some effort to look properly into its mistake.

JC, Hants

The Post Office had already investigated this and its conclusion when I approached it was the same as before.

The Norwegian kroner receipt dated eight months before that of the euro purchase showed as an “on demand” transaction, not a pre-order. This means the customer would have paid for these notes when they received the travel money.

The Post Office stresses that its policy is to count all currency transactions in front of the customer at the time of purchase. When you went in to collect the money, you were recovering from an eye operation, which somewhat impaired your vision. You also mention that in the normal way of things you wouldn’t at a glance be able to distinguish between the two currencies.

The receipt handed over with the kroner showed a credit-card number that isn’t yours but you say could be traced. The Post Office agreed it could but only if the 60 boxes of post office receipts, which are gathered from all post offices for the day, were waded through. That, it says, is not an option.

The Post Office says that to have received the kroner in error at the time of the euro purchase, the currency would have to have remained unaccounted for in the branch for almost nine months.


The postmaster you called from France retired around this time. There was another after that and then the present incumbent, who says no discrepancies between Norwegian kroner and euros were found during this time. Nor did anything show up in routine audits and the further searches that are undertaken with a change of management.

The Post Office is sure the error would not have gone undetected. The banknotes were “on demand”, so couldn’t have somehow got stuck in a drawer unnoticed, with the person who had paid for them not collecting them. The Post Office says it will give you a full refund in exchange for the kroner, which will be about £200, “as a gesture of goodwill”.

I did ask the obvious question about your travel destinations and it turns out that neither you nor your travelling companion has been to Norway for the past 40 years. So this remains a mystery. It does, though, emphasise how important it is to check what you are receiving in the way of foreign currency before leaving the counter.

You are now toying with the idea of having a holiday in Norway, but otherwise say you will now let this matter rest.

[arnold cheshire]

theses scammers should be prosecuted

[speckledtangerine]

Seriously what a load of shite.

He should be taken to court for attempted fraud.

[Lounge Lizard]

"The mistake was discovered in France when I went with the Post Office envelope to pay for petrol, only to discover they had given me kroner" - surely most people would think to check their currency before leaving home.
"You are now toying with the idea of having a holiday in Norway" - yes, better than France, surely.