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Customer stunned when asked to pay Dh19 million for bottle of eye drops

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Customer stunned when asked to pay Dh19 million for bottle of eye drops

He went to buy his prescribed medicine and a bottle of eye drops after an eye test.

Published: Mon 13 May 2019, 12:43 PM

Updated: Mon 13 May 2019, 7:50 PM

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A 55-year-old customer from north Wales was left shocked after an 'oversensitive' barcode reader reflected GBP4 billion (Dh19 million approx) as price for a bottle of eye drops.
The incident happened at one of the Specsavers opticians stores in Wrexham, north Wales, when Martyn Chidlow went to buy his prescribed medicine and a bottle of eye drops after an eye test. Chidlow proceeded at the billing counter where the cash register reflected GBP 4,031,626,711.51 as the price of the eye drops bottle. It later turned out that the barcode reader wrongly processed the customer's ID number, instead of the product's barcode.
"I caused quite a stir as I just started giggling, I felt sorry for the lady at the till as she was trying to sort it out. She was really good and got it all sorted very quickly. It wasn't human error, it was just a problem with the computerised till," Chidlow was quoted as saying in Daily Mail.
The customer added that the lady at the counter was also baffled to see the price. "The girl scanned the drops and then she was having a bit of a nightmare as she scanned it again and this price popped up. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the price on the screen," he added.
A spokesman for the eye care chain said, "Our in-store scanners are very sensitive and in this instance appear to have processed the customer's ID number, instead of the product's barcode. The mistake was sorted in moments."



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