MONEY is often tight after Christmas, so Alan Mellar was outraged to discover he had been charged twice for an expensive purchase.

On Christmas Eve Mr Mellar, 26, from Abbey Meads, forked out £138.69 for an X Box games console from the Argos store in Greenbridge Retail Park.

Mr Mellar, an engineer, paid on a Switch card but later found Argos had put the transaction through twice, debiting him £277.38.

He said: "I couldn't believe it. It is supposed to be the season of goodwill, not daylight robbery."

Mr Mellar only noticed the mistake while checking his bank statement online after Christmas.

At first he panicked and thought someone had stolen his card and gone on a spree.

He immediately informed his bank, Halifax, and went to the nearest branch, in West Swindon.

Mr Mellar said: "I expected them to cancel my card. Instead they said it was an administration error by Argos and other customers had contacted them with the same problem."

Anxious to get his money back, he returned to Argos for a refund.

He said: "I expected a full apology and refund. But staff refused and said they had been instructed not to give refunds. I was furious."

Only when he threatened to call the police, did staff relent and return his money in cash.

Argos, in Greenbridge Retail Park, refused to comment on the situation.

Annie Neesham, Argos media relations manager, admitted the mistake but said the problem, which affected stores nationwide, had been rectified.

She refused to reveal how many customers were charged twice.

Miss Neesham said: " Due to a transmission error on Christ-mas Eve a number of transactions involving Switch cards were debited twice from customer accounts.

"We have taken steps to ensure all duplicate transactions are successfully refunded."

Although this reversal

took place on Monday the credit transactions may not appear on affected customers' accounts for several days because of bank processing.

Miss Neesham added: "We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Victoria Tagg