A charity is having to issue refunds to tens of thousands of donors after it admitted that it mistakenly took 100 times the amount supporters had pledged from their bank accounts.
Concern Worldwide, an international development organisation, apologised and promised to pay all of the money back and to meet any additional charges its supporters may have been hit with as a direct result of the error.
It said that, when processing about 25,000 of its supporters’ normal monthly direct debit donations, an administrative error had led to the mistake. Concern said it had been unable to stop the payments from going through and promised to write to each donor to explain.
One such email, seen by the Guardian, showed that a supporter’s direct debit for May was due to be £1,700, when she had only pledged to donate £17 per month. The supporter asked not to be named.
The charity confirmed to the Guardian that the others had been similarly affected, meaning that, if each supporter had pledged only £1, the total taken in error would still run into the millions.
The charity’s UK executive director Rose Caldwell said: “We would like to apologise unreservedly for the error and any problems this may have caused.
“As soon as we became aware of the problem, we took immediate action to rectify it by contacting donors directly. We are working to credit all of the accounts affected and will fully refund any bank charges that result from this mistake.
“We are conducting a full investigation into this matter and want to reassure the public that we are putting robust measures in place to make sure this does not happen again. Without the support of our donors, Concern would not be able to deliver its life-saving humanitarian work to vulnerable people worldwide.”
Concern Worldwide specialises in tackling hunger. In 2014, it said it reached 17.5 million people in 26 countries and received £23.5m in the UK to support its work. It said that £9.7m of that came from fundraising activities.
