Hair salon owner stunned by company's £12.4m error

A hair salon owner was shocked when National Grid mistakenly offered him millions of pounds in compensation following a power cut at his Lincolnshire business.

James Parker was sent a letter by the energy company saying he was owed more than £12.4m due to a "failure to restore" power within 12 hours.

Mr Parker joked they must have "mistaken us for Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport".

National Grid has apologised for the error and said it promptly sent a follow-up letter with the amount corrected to £95.

Mr Parker, who co-owns Asembo hairdressers in Stamford with his wife Natasha, said he "had to put his glasses on" when he saw the amount.

He said he quickly realised the money was not meant for him and that "clearly it was a mistake."

Mr Parker said the salon team had been aware of the letter and there were dreams of holidays and other ideas of how to use the money.

He said he would never have spent the cheque but, if he had been allowed to keep the money, he would have bought "a life of anonymity" for him and his family.

After checking the post every day, Mr Parker was left disappointed when, six days later, another letter arrived with a cheque for £95.

He said he was still grateful for the compensation, but "not as grateful as he would have been" had he received the millions.

A National Grid spokesperson said: "While we're not in the business of handing out jackpots, we are in the business of keeping the lights on - so the customer was promptly sent a follow-up letter confirming the correct payment figure.

"We'd like to thank them for their understanding, and will be reviewing our processes to prevent this situation reoccurring."

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