'Oh Oh! I Have An £84m Overdraft'

A careworker thought all her Christmases had come at once when her bank mistakenly extended her overdraft facility - to £84m.

Kaylie Coomber, from Highnam, near Gloucester, could not believe her eyes when she received a letter from Alliance and Leicester informing her of the considerable change in her financial circumstances.

Miss Coomber works at the National Star college for severely disabled teenagers and young people near Cheltenham.

The 20-year-old said she had previously phoned the bank asking them to extend her overdraft to £250 in the run up to Christmas.

She said: "I rang them up three days ago to ask if they could extend my overdraft by £50.

"I needed the overdraft because of the time - it's just before Christmas and I have to pay my car tax and MOT.

''But I was totally staggered when they then sent me a letter saying 'We are pleased to confirm that we have arranged an overdraft limit of £84,480,090.00 on your account.

"I knew they had obviously made a mistake - but I ran to the cashpoint as I want to see if I was one of the richest people in the country, sadly I wasn't."

Miss Coomber said that while she could not stop laughing when she got the letter, the bank did not find it quite so amusing.

"When I phoned the bank to tell them about it they didn't apologise or find it funny," she explained. "I am a bit disappointed I am not going to get my £84m overdraft."

A spokesman for Alliance and Leicester apologised for "any inconvenience or upset" caused to Miss Coomber and confirmed it was an "unfortunate" one-off incident.