Austrian Man Accidentally Pays $100,000 for a Beer
We’ve had some pricey pints in our day, but not like this! An Austrian journalist was charged £55,000 for a pint of beer in Manchester. Learn exactly how this happened:
By Clara Jaide on Sep. 05, 2019
Austrian journalist pays £55,000 for a pint of beer
We all love beer– but at what cost? Over the weekend, Peter Lalor was given the ultimate surprise when he realized he had paid £55,000 (which is a whopping $89,814.26 Canadian Dollars) for a pint of beer at a Manchester hotel. The beer was supposed to be £5.50– so you can imagine the shock when Lalor realized he had paid the price of 10,000 beers.
How did a man pay £55,000 for one beer?
Much like us, you’re probably wondering, “how does this even happen?” Well, the Austrian journalist, who was visiting Manchester for the Ashes cricket test, decided to stop in at the Malmaison Hotel for a drink. Lalor ordered a Deuchars IPA off the menu and when ready to pay for what he calls, “the most expensive beer in history”, Lalor had forgotten his reading glasses– not realizing his tab was a hefty £55,000.
“When I paid, I didn’t have my glasses on and there was some issue with the machine so I had to put my details in twice,” Lalor told the Guardian. He described having a “weird feeling” than asking the waitress to confirm how much he was charged. It was then revealed that Lalor was charged $99,983.64AUD (£55,262.96) for a pint on his Visa.
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
To add insult to injury, Lalor was charged a transaction fee of $2,499.59 AUD ($2,256.38 CAD) making his purchase a total of $102,483.23 AUD (which is just shy 100,000 Canadian Dollars). The hotel manager immediately promised to help him correct the issue with his bank. Lalor assumed the bank wouldn’t authorize such a massive payment, so he left the hotel– He was wrong.
Did he get his money back?
After waking up to an alarming phone call from his wife, who was wondering why there was a “hole” in their mortgage account, Lalor took to Twitter to explain that he will be getting his money back. “It really is baffling that both Visa and our bank would allow such an amount to go through unquestioned,” Lalor said in his tweet, “They agree that there is a refund in the system but it will take 9 working days for it to go through. In the meantime, there’s a massive hole in my finances.”
So safe to say, Lalor will be refunded his money. One Twitter user brought up the bright side:
Well if you look on the bright side the bank may refund the TOTAL amount meaning the pint will have been free.
— Cormac O’Connor (@whoareyouanyway) September 5, 2019
Let this be a lesson to us all to double-check the tab before we swipe our cards.
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