A 72-YEAR-OLD British retiree living on the Costa del Sol has vowed to ‘go to war’ with Google after €60 was taken from his account out of the blue.
Neville Stock has threatened legal action after an unidentified €50 Google Ads charge appeared on his bank statement in May last year, shortly followed by a second withdrawal of €10.
The former owner of a London-based CCTV security and surveillance firm, Stock explained he briefly signed up to Google Ads in 2015 while running a holiday rental business, The Extra Mile Holidays, from his Estepona villa with his wife.
But his Google Ads account has sat dormant since 2016, when the couple sold the villa and retired.
“It is infuriating that a big bully company can just take money from you,” Stock said. “But I am not going away.”
After contacting his Spanish bank to reverse the charges, Stock was told by a Unicaja employee that he would need to take the matter up with Google directly.
A follow-up email from the bank appeared to confirm the withdrawals were genuine and not the result of a scam, as is often the case with unauthorised payments.
Stock said he repeatedly contacted Google’s customer service teams in both the UK and Spain, and filled in a dedicated troubleshooting form for disputed Google Ads charges – but never received a reply.
In an escalating effort to claw back his money, the retiree even penned two handwritten letters to Google’s headquarters in London and California in July last year, again to no effect.
“Even if I do not get my money back, the very least they could do is get back to me and explain why I have been charged,” Stock told the Olive Press.
Google Ads is an online advertising platform that allows businesses to promote their products or services by paying for their listings to appear in Google search results and across its wider network.
Advertisers set budgets and are typically charged on a pay-per-click basis, with costs varying depending on keyword competition and campaign settings.
But the Extra Mile Holidays’ website was taken down about a decade ago, after Stock closed his business – which means it could not have possibly appeared in any Google searches.
According to user reports, charges for other Google-operated services can sometimes appear on bank statements as Google Ads withdrawals.
However, Stock insists he has not paid for any Google service in nearly a decade.
“And even if I had,” he said, “the least they could do is explain that to me.”
As of January 7, a notice on Google’s help centre warned that “due to a technical issue with one of our payment processing partners, some Google Ads users’ cards may have been recently overcharged.”
Approached by the Olive Press, Google’s press office did not respond to a request for clarification about Stock’s charges or the identity of the payment processing partner.
Stock moved with his wife to Spain in 2001 shortly after he quit his job at the surveillance firm in London.
The couple ran their holiday rental business for about a decade before going into retirement in 2016.
“I have got all the time in the world now,” Stock said. “And I will not let this one slide.”
Click here to read more Estepona News from The Olive Press.
