Poverty relief charity Concern Worldwide has apologised for taking hundreds of pounds extra from the bank accounts of 25,000 regular donors.
The charity took 100 times more from donors than they had agreed, forcing many into their overdrafts and causing more to cancel direct debits with the charity.
An audit firm has been brought in to investigate what the charity admits was an “administrative error”.
A statement issued by the charity said “we take full responsibility for the mistake. We cannot apologise enough to those who are affected”.
“On discovering the error we did our absolute utmost to stop the payments but unfortunately this was not possible,” the statement said.
A spokeswoman confirmed the charity was working with the Bank of Ireland, AIB, RBS, NatWest, Ulster Bank, Danske Bank or Santander to reverse the payments as soon as possible.
But donors using other banks have been advised to contact their banks “to explain that an error has occurred” and file an “immediate indemnity claim”.
“Unfortunately we are not allowed to contact your bank on your behalf so we must ask you to take this step yourself. It will result in the quickest correction of this error,” the statement said.
Donors took to Twitter yesterday to express shock at the withdrawals.
Twitter User Chrissi Taylor said: “I've been charged £800 instead of £8. I don't even make that much in a month. Sorry, but I can't continue to donate.”
Another donor Jamie Shaughnessy said: “Thank you Concern for charging me £500 instead of £5 on my monthly donation.”
A user named LB said he was forced to stop donating as a result of the error: “Dimwits at Concern took £1,000 from my account. You can refund me and cancel all further donations,” he said.
The charity reassured donors it was “working to return money as soon as we possibly can and reimburse any costs”.
In the light of cancelled donations, the charity said it was “hugely appreciative of donations which do so much for the world’s poorest people”.
"We don’t yet know how many people will have closed their direct debits as a result, so can’t say what the effect will be," a spokeswoman said. "We are ensuring that supporters are refunded as quickly as possible and are working closely with the banks to achieve that."
Donors in the Republic of Ireland have not been affected, the charity said.
