Parents lose money in Keydell Nurseries website malfunction

Online booking opened for Santa visits and a Woodland Walk at Keydell Nurseries, Horndean, in Hampshire, over the weekend.

But many people reached the checkout to be greeted with a "payment not taken" message, and so they tried again.

READ MORE: Fish and chip shop closes in cost of living crisis after 15 years

This led to hundreds losing money by trying to re-book tickets.

Amy Mason was one mum to temporarily lose money.

The 34-year-old from Thornhill in Southampton told the Echo she was planning to take her two youngest children on the walk - Esmae, five, and George, two.

Amy logged on to the website at 9am on Saturday morning to buy tickets.

She selected the date and tickets and entered her details, but then a message popped up saying "payment not completed" and the page sent her back to the original booking section.

She tried three times to complete her payment without success, and her online banking showed no money had been taken.

Esmae and George on Santa's sleigh at Keydell Nurseries (Image: Amy Mason)

It was only several hours later when she had a confirmation for three sets of tickets, and £300 had been taken from her account.

"I had the fraud team calling saying there was suspicious activity on my account. I had to block my account, and move money into a different account to stop more being taken out, and get a new card," she said.

"It was so stressful. They say they have refunded the money now."

The mum added that she has taken her children for the last five years and this is the first time she has had any issues with booking. 

"I won't go again if they do not change their booking system. It's a cost of living crisis. We can't afford to lose that amount of money, even if only for a few days."

In a statement, Keydell Nurseries said that they had upgraded their website to cope after it crashed last year.

A spokesperson said: "Many people were trying to buy tickets at the same time and their site could not cope with confirmation in time, and they had a button appear saying try again, so customers were doing multiple purchases and left pending.

"We were not made aware of this, and the web shop was open for hour and a half, until we removed it from our website.

"All the money is held in a payment site before being paid to us, which is quite safe, while we process all of the refunds.

"We have four computers on the go returning the refunds which can only be done one at a time.

"For refunds, please contact us if you haven't already. We do not know how so many visitors were able to get on website at once but it's nearly sorted.

"We fully apologise to all customers and keep their booked slot required for Christmas Santa and Woodland Walk visits. The majority of customers are very happy they have the slots they require.

"We are reviewing the system ticket hub, who have taken full responsibility for their website failure which was worldwide.

"We still have plenty of availability when we reopen the site at the end of the week."

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