Originally Posted by alex0683de

My guess would be that the check-in staff at Genoa were contract staff - they were employed by some ground-services operator that Ryanair hired, not by Ryanair itself - and they just couldn't be arsed to do the extra work of processing the excess luggage charges.

I agree with your statement though - usually Ryanair doesn't show an inch of flexibility on this subject. If the luggage scale says 15.1 instead of 15.0kg, you're paying!