Nursery owners tell of their horror after '˜fat-fingered' mistake almost costs them £6,000

Mount Folly Nurseries was slapped with a £6,000 bill to promote on the global social media platform a ‘fat-fingered’ mistake while paying for advertising.

The Wickham-based centre had intended to pay £500 on promoting its charity event last week – which proved a smash hit.

However, when Mount Folly attempted to boost its budget to £600, to increase its advertising reach, a team member inadvertently spent £6,000.

Panicked owners were only alerted to the gaff after a few days, sparking a desperate plea to Facebook to refund the money.

And, after just two days, bosses at the social media giant granted their wish.

Explaining the situation on their Facebook page today, Mount Folly said: ‘Normally we spend around £500 promoting the event. However, after the event concluded we noticed that for a few days between 19th of June and the 24th, we were being charged £600 a day. And the total charges for the promotion were capped at £6,000!

‘Initially we thought we’d been hacked. But it seems that on the 19th I tried to increase the maximum budget from £500 to £600, but inadvertently fat-fingered an extra zero and ended up spending £6,000 for a charity event which only raised £2,500. *double facepalm* panic ensued.

‘After contacting Facebook support and a 48-hour period of discussion their end, Facebook agreed to refund the difference of £5,400.

‘So effectively, Facebook just donated that figure towards promoting our event. Which is very kind of them considering they were under no obligation to do so, as it was clearly my error. But I have to hand it to them for making the right decision in this instance. And we can’t thank them enough.’

Graham Cowles, long-standing owner of the nursery site, praised Facebook for its kindness and understanding.

Speaking to The News, he said: ‘It was absolutely horrifying. We couldn’t understand why we were getting hit with a £6,000 bill.

‘Facebook was great. They took a close look at it and took a while to make their minds up.

‘But I think they handled it very well and realised that we have spent the same amount on previous events for several years running and that we weren’t trying to pull a flanker on them.

‘It was lovely to have some good news from this big company that everyone is always ready to have a go at.’