23 Jul, 2025 @ 15:54
1 min read

Brit hit with €1,195 bill to top up electric car in Spain – and Shell won’t answer

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A BRITISH holidaymaker was left fuming after being slapped with a jaw-dropping €1,195 bill to charge his electric car in Spain – and Shell has refused to explain why.

John Stephen, from Tunbridge Wells but now living in France, was on a festive getaway to Madrid when he stopped at a Shell Recharge station to top up his MG4 electric car.

He thought nothing of the €71.77 charge on Christmas morning for a modest 18.88kWh – steep, but fair enough. But the real Christmas hangover came two weeks later, when a second bill landed: €1,124 for a phantom charge he says never happened.

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To make matters worse, Shell claimed he was charging at 12.34pm on December 25 – while he and his wife were actually in an Uber on the way to Christmas lunch.

“There’s a €925 ‘connection fee’ on the second charge,” John told The Connexion. “It makes no sense. And no one will explain it.”

Despite multiple emails, a registered letter to Shell’s European HQ, and desperate calls to their ‘emergency’ helpline, John says he’s been met with silence.

“I finally spoke to someone in Ireland who admitted the bill looked dodgy – but they said they couldn’t escalate it and told me to write again. I did. Still nothing. Not even an apology.”

Frustrated, John has now taken legal action using France’s small claims court and is seeking help from the European Consumer Centre.

“I’m doing this not just to get my money back, but because I worry this isn’t a one-off. If this can happen to someone with a paper trail and legal help, what hope is there for the average tourist on holiday in Spain?”

Shell told The Connexion that customers should “reach out” if they have an issue – but John says he’s done that, over and over again, with no result.

He’s since cancelled his Shell account and vowed never to use the company’s chargers again.

Shell Recharge boasts more than 850,000 public charging points across Europe and the UK – but this episode raises serious questions about how the system is being monitored.

“EV infrastructure is growing fast,” said John. “But if accountability doesn’t keep up, more people are going to get stung.”

He added: “I’m sharing my story because I doubt I’m the only one. If someone else reads this and realises they’ve been wrongly charged too – maybe they’ll finally speak up.”

Click here to read more Environment News from The Olive Press.

Dilip Kuner

Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988.
He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press.
At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park.
In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here.
He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency.
He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later.
Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

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