Visitors to Brighton Palace Pier charged more than £2,000 to go on rides after card processing error
Video report from ITV News Meridian's Malcolm Shaw
Hundreds of visitors to Brighton Palace Pier have been accidentally charged more than £2,100 to go on rides, after a card processing error.
The attraction has apologised for the mistake, which it blamed on payment provider Worldpay.
In a statement, it said customers were charged more than expected because the card payments were accidentally processed using the date - which began with the last two digits of the year 2021 - instead of the correct transaction amount.
Anne Ackord, chief executive of the Brighton Pier Group, said:
"As soon as we discovered that this serious error had occurred we entered into discussions with Worldpay - who have accepted full responsibility - to ensure that refunds are processed without delay.
"The money wrongly debited from our customers' bank accounts will be refunded by Worldpay at the earliest opportunity and any associated bank charges that they might have incurred will also be returned to their accounts.
"Brighton Palace Pier would like to apologise profusely to customers who have been affected by this error and assure them that we have reacted swiftly and decisively to ratify the situation."
She also said a number of customers had tried to contact Worldpay directly but were told the company could not help them due to data protection issues.
The statement from Brighton Pier Group quoted Worldpay, which the attraction said it received from the company's corporate support department.
It read:
"I'd like to offer my personal apologies for this issue and any inconvenience caused.
"Worldpay will correct these errors by processing a credit on the affected customers' accounts today to remove the debited amounts that were applied in error and any bank charges that may have been incurred.
"I can offer no excuse for the fact that your customers were debited incorrectly."