Help Me Hank: Help Me Hank! Currency Confusion

Bright lights and big city, Andrea and her boyfriend, big travelers, needed an anniversary destination. London? Paris? Rome?

Andrea Broughton
"We had decided to go to New York."

With Big Apple hotels in mind, Andrea went online and shopped for a reasonable room rate. But her confirmation had the hotel price in GBP.

Andrea Broughton
"It was in pounds."

British pounds? Andrea wanted the Big Apple, not Big Ben, but her on line travels had landed her on a British website. Oops.

Andrea Broughton
"It’s confusing."

Yeah. It turns out Andrea thought she was paying $229 but it was actually 229 British pounds.

Andrea Broughton
"It’s just so confusing."

Yeah. That’s 416 U.S. dollars.

Andrea Broughton
"I canceled it right away."

She called the company to fix it, ok, but then on the refund she noticed something wasn't right.

Andrea Broughton
"It had credited me in U.S. dollars, not in pounds."

Checking the exchange rate, that means about $200 were lost in translation.

Andrea Broughton
"It’s just confusing."

She called the travel agency, but they were no help.

Andrea Broughton
"I just got nowhere."

She called her credit card company, but their reply said "no billing error" had been made.

Andrea Broughton
"I was like, I’ll email Help Me Hank."

Of course Andrea should be refunded the same amount she paid, no matter what the currency.

We found everyone was speaking English, but no one was talking the same language. When Andrea called for the refund, she'd gotten the company's U.S. site. It refunds in dollars.

So we emailed the U.K. and cleared up the currency confusion.

And on Andrea’s next credit card statement, she received the correct refund in the correct currency and she's learned one cyber lesson: remember why they call it the world wide web.

Andrea Broughton
"I don't think I’ll ever do anything online again."

It’s easy to get lost on the Internet, so confirm your website before you make a costly final click.

(Copyright (c) 2005 Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)