Imagine the moment: you’re planning a bargain mini-break abroad when you realise you’ve been charged a whopping £56,000 for two nights in a hotel.

That’s exactly what happened to NHS secretary Charlotte Smith, who thought she was paying £169.10 for a hotel in Budapest, but ended up seriously overdrawn.

The eye-wincing mistake occurred when the hotel charged Smith in Euros rather than Hungarian Forints and she was additionally charged a currency exchange fee by Barclays – despite having just £400 in her account.  

Speaking to the MailOnline, Smith, from Essex, explained that she was debited £56,154.42 by the hotel and then almost immediately repaid £52,768.42 when they realised the error. 

“But that still meant I was left to pay over £3,000 in transaction fees,” she explained. 

On Facebook, she shared screen shots detailing her conversation with the Barclays complaints team, asking why the bank had authorised the payment when she didn’t have anywhere near the funds in her account. 

Barclays initially told Smith the bank “could not stop payments on every account” and did not offer to refund the fees taken from her account. 

“It is just so stressful and all Barclays do is threaten me with overdraft payments. I can’t pay my direct debits for my car, phone and gym membership. I have had to borrow money from my family to cover the cost of travelling to work and was unable to buy presents for my sister and dad’s birthday,” she told the Mail.

After her story hit headlines, Barclays finally refunded the money. “We’re sorry Ms Smith experienced a problem with a mistaken payment taken at a hotel in Hungary,” a spokesperson said in a statement. 

“When Ms Smith contacted us to get help with the transaction fee it’s clear we fell short of our high standards and we’re happy to confirm that all fees have now been refunded.”