I took my daughter and grandchildren to Tesco in West Durrington where she tried to purchase some goods. She tried to pay with one of the new chip and pin cards and was told that the transaction had not gone through.

To cut a very long and tedious story short, Tesco had in fact taken £29 from her account and then tried to take it again.

We went back to the store the next day when the manager tried to say her bank statement and the bank must be wrong as they had no record of receiving that amount of money.

My daughter is a single mother with two pre-school children and knows to the penny exactly what money she has in her account at all times.

The Tesco manager said that if she had not signed the till receipt they could not have taken the money.

Not so. We showed him in black and white a statement from her bank with all the details on, the bank official's name and the bank's telephone number.

How has this ended? Basically, she "might" get the money refunded tomorrow and Tesco are still denying they have her money.

As an afterthought my daughter was given a pack of nappies "for her inconvenience"; although this hardly covers her embarassment or panic over where her money had gone.

Perhaps other readers might want to know that it is possible to have money deducted from their account without actually signing for it.

-Jane Spencer, Bognor Regis