IT was interesting to read Barbara Cleaver’s letter in Friday’s edition of the paper - about being charged for additional items at M&S.

My wife and I had the same experience at M&S prior to Christmas. 

The shop was more than normal so the receipt was not checked at the time. 

Three days later we discovered being charged an extra £26.50 for items we did not buy.  We can ‘boast’ to be older than your correspondent but the marbles are still there. 

The same ‘explanation’ was given to us as to Barbara but one item was not even on the bar code listing.  It was a patio plant at £25 we could not find on the web site. 

One can’t help the feeling that probably due to the current retail experience of some  of our largest supply chains that some kind of inefficiency has crept in. 

It has been noticeable that in the café when coffee machines have broken down and staff have to cope with a single machine it takes weeks for the repair. 

There was also a problem for months with the card machines at many points in the store not operating properly which frustrated staff and customers alike. 

However the consoling feature was that as is usual there was no quibbling about the mistakes and the amount was refunded within five minutes of our complaint with staff being very helpful.

John Swarsbrick