A stunned holidaymaker claims he was ‘ripped off’ after being charged £25 for two scoops of lemon sorbet. Bailey Turvey travelled to the Amalfi Coast in Italy on a four-day work trip in July and took a boat trip to Positano, a beloved hotspot for celebs including Jennifer Lopez and Samuel L. Jackson.
With the region boasting some of the best lemons in the world, the 24-year-old decided to try its famous sorbet. Bailey bought two of the desserts, with one scoop served inside an eight-inch tall hollowed-out lemon, for himself and his 23-year-old mate Oliver Bashford-Squires.
But the content creator ‘couldn’t believe it’ when he said he’d coughed up €30 (£25) on them when beeping his card on the machine – with each scoop costing just over £12. Bailey shared a video of himself looking bewildered while holding the frozen treat with the caption ‘POV: you forgot to ask the price before ordering your ice cream in Positano and you get charged 30 Euros for two scoops of lemon sorbet’.
People took to the comments section balking at the price, with one claiming he’d snapped up a ‘tourist trap special’. He conceded in the comments section ‘I think we got ripped off’.
Bailey, from Brighton, said: “I was very shocked. I was expecting it to be expensive but I wasn’t expecting that amount of money.
“Positano is known for its lemons, we wanted to give it a go. We saw everyone walking down the streets and heard about how the lemons were from the region. We didn’t check the price on the menu. Walking down the street they don’t have any of the prices out, then you just buy it and they can charge you whatever they want.
“The shop owner didn’t even say how much it cost, he just held out the card reader. I didn’t say anything at the time, I was just quiet. When we walked away I said to my friend ‘guess how much they cost?’. I couldn’t believe it.
“I think they market it up because it’s inside a lemon but it’s the equivalent of a scoop and a half. They don’t even sell it as one or two scoops, they just sell it as ‘the lemon sorbet’ so they can profit off that a bit more.
“They make it look big with a massive lemon but you can’t eat the lemon. My friend was just as shocked. I was paying for everything so he didn’t have to worry, he didn’t have quite the shock to the bank balance as I did.”
Bailey admitted that while the sorbet tasted good, it wasn’t ‘worth the price’ so will be making sure to check the cost before paying for items in future. Bailey said: “It’s definitely a tourist trap. It was good lemon sorbet but not worth that price.
“It was definitely a mind game to try and trick yourself into feeling less bad for paying that price. Holiday money is slightly different from normal money. If it was a day-to-day thing I wouldn’t be able to believe it, like if I was back home and spent that on a coffee. I’ll be checking the price next time I buy an ice-cream.”
TikTok users took to the comments to express their shock at the high price. One user wrote: “You didn’t order a sorbet. You ordered a tourist trap special.”
Another commented: “Is that really how much they charge?” while a third user wrote: “That’s what credit cards are for.”