Pensioner Jean Hudson initially blamed the rising prices for the high shopping bill

Apr 7, 2014 12:21 GMT  ·  By
Pensioner Jean Hudson was charged a whopping £53.55 ($88.75/€64.75) for a white cabbage
   Pensioner Jean Hudson was charged a whopping £53.55 ($88.75/€64.75) for a white cabbage

We all noticed that prices began going up, but paying over £50 (nearly $83/€60) for a cabbage is a little too much, even for the wealthy.

A pensioner was shocked to realize the supermarket chain Asda had charged her a whopping £53.55 ($88.75/€64.75) for a white cabbage, which usually doesn't cost more than £1 ($1.66/€1.21).

61-year-old Jean Hudson and her husband Graham did their weekly shop at an Asda store in Tipton, West Midlands, and initially thought the high food bill was due to the fact that food prices were slowly on the rise.

It wasn't until she got to her car that she checked the bill and noticed the error: instead of paying just 30p ($0.5/€0.36) for the vegetable, the supermarket charged her a much bigger sum.

“We were at the checkout and we went to pay and my husband said that the bill was a little steep, but I didn’t think anything of it to be honest,” Jean said, according to Daily Mail.

“It’s not unusual for us to spend a little more if there is a deal on. We had bought a few items for the Tipton food bank, some biscuits and coffee for my son,” she continued.

The woman, from Sedgley near Dudley, said her husband kept grumbling about the high shopping bill, and when she reached her car and checked the receipt, she realizes he was actually right.

Obviously, the couple returned to the customer services and showed the employee the unusually high bill. The store apologized for the mistake, and in addition to fully reimbursing Mrs. Hudson, they also gave her a £2 ($3.32/€2.42) voucher as a gesture of goodwill.

The woman explained that although she was surprised by the mistake, she found the incident rather humorous, and said it wouldn't stop her from shopping at Asda.

“A system glitch meant that the cabbage was scanned at the wrong price. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused and we’ll ensure this doesn’t happen again,” an Asda spokesman said.

The incident comes after another customer was charged £450 ($745/€544) for a loaf of bread at an Asda store in Wolverhampton, just last week. Warehouse worker John Brown, from Heat Town, was asked to pay the staggering sum for five items that should have cost around £5 ($8.29/€6.04), during a trip to the local Asda store, on Jack Highward Way. He was also given a refund and a gift card.