Hundreds of visitors have been accidentally charged thousands of pounds to go on fairground rides at Brighton Palace Pier.

The tourist attraction has apologised for the mistake, which it blamed on a “processing error” by payment providers Worldpay.

In a statement, it said customers were charged more than £2,100 because the card payments were accidentally processed using the date – beginning 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 said a number of customers had contacted Worldpay directly and were told the company could not help them because of data protection.

The statement quoted a letter from Worldpay which the attraction said it received from the company’s corporate support department on Thursday.

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.”

Worldpay has been contacted for comment.

Have you been affected by this? Contact jody.doherty-cove@theargus.co.uk