SHOPPERS who bought last minute presents from Argos on Christmas Eve were furious to learn they had been charged twice for their purchases.

People who paid at one of the 523 branches using Switch, Solo or Style debit cards later discovered that their transactions had gone through twice because of a computer fault.

Stores across the country, including Leigh, were affected by the problem and thousands of people were overcharged, with the error running into millions of pounds.

Argos has been forced to apologise to customers for the mistake, for which it claimed the banks were partly to blame and began issuing refunds last week.