A trendy restaurant that charged a diner EUR 12 to hang her handbag on a table hook has been accused of ripping off customers after she exposed the scam on social media.
The customer, named as Laura Cunei in her post on X, had joined friends for a slap-up meal at the sushi eaterie Wakame Ibiza on the Spanish holiday island on 5th August.
But she was astonished when the bill arrived showing she had been charged EUR 12, or GBP 10, for the use of a table handbag holder.
She wrote: “The waitress kindly offers to hang our bags on a little hook at the table.
“We decline her offer, but due to her insistence, we accepted.
“Our surprise upon seeing the bill…Is this normal? Is it legal?”
Laura added: “When we saw the receipt, we told them it didn’t seem right to pay that much because we hadn’t asked for it.
“They told us we could keep the hook if we wanted.
“After our refusal and our incredulous expressions, they gave us a new receipt without the ‘bag hook’ tag.”
The first item on the original bill shows a charge for a ‘gancho bolsa’, Spanish for ‘bag hook’.
Laura’s protest snowballed after hospitality expert Jesus Soriano shared her post on his TikTok account Soy Camarero where he gives real-life examples of restaurant rip-offs.
It quickly went viral with tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments.
One person said: “They’ll be charging us to breathe next.”
Others said they had been charged extra for having a ‘good’ table and one said he had received a bill where they had been charged EUR 2-a-head for not having starters.
Spain’s consumer protection agency OCU replied to the post on X giving a link to file a complaint.
The restaurant’s furious bosses later claimed the charge had been a “misunderstanding”.
Wakame Ibiza said on Instagram: “The amount that appeared on the ticket was the result of an error in our system.
“It was marked as a merchandising item with a price, when it should have been shown with zero cost.”
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below. Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub-Editor: Simona Kitanovska, Agency: Newsflash
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