A leading ten-pin bowling firm has apologised after customers were slapped with sky-high phone bills after minutes-long calls to the company.

Hollywood Bowl at Westwood Cross in Thanet came under fire after residents incurred eye-watering tariffs when phoning the premium number listed through Google.

But after launching a review in response to the complaints, the national firm now says the fees on its Google Business Profile “had not been updated”, and amendments have since been made.

KentOnline learned many customers had only called to try and book a game or find out more information when they received a shocking bill.

One mum says she was hit with a £16 charge for an 11-minute phone call, while others received unexpected fees for calling the 0844 number.

It led to the business coming under intense criticism, with furious residents branding Hollywood “disgusting” and saying on social media it “should be ashamed”.

Amy Calver last week warned people off calling, saying: “[I] found out the hard way that the call is charged at almost £1 a minute!

“Didn’t even notice the number when I just clicked on the call button,” she added.

Mia Miller also faced unexpected charges, revealing how she was charged “£7 for a six-minute phone call to book a lane for the next day”.

Dawn Greenan added: “It’s disgusting and like a lot of websites, we can't always find the answers we want and just want to talk to a human but at those prices that's a mugging.”

While Hollywood Bowl insists it only charges 7p a minute plus the customer’s network access charge, which varies depending on provider.

For instance, depending on the tariff, some mobile providers charge an access fee before the conversation has even started.

But in a typical contract, Tesco Mobile charges 25p extra per minute during an 0844 call, EE 40p, while Three and O2 charge each 65p.

Hollywood Bowl bosses admitted it had not followed regulations in clearly advertising the extra costs associated with calling the premium number.

Ofcom requires advertisers to clearly state the service and access charge for any service numbers where a telephone number is featured in advertising or marketing materials such as a website, social media or Google.

A Hollywood Bowl spokesperson told KentOnline: "We follow Ofcom regulations which require the company to clearly state the service and access charge in all forms of advertising for our centres.

“After conducting a review of the Westwood Cross Google Business page, this information had not been updated to reflect our website and all other advertising where the contact number for the centre is displayed.

"We take customer complaints seriously and apologise to those affected. We have now updated the required telephone charges information on the Westwood Cross Google page."

The £3.5 million leisure venue only opened in August last year, taking the place of Debenhams which closed in 2021.

It features 22 ten-pin bowling lanes, including four luxury VIP ones, alongside amusements including Mario Kart and air hockey, plus an American-style bar and diner.