<p>The restaurant’s rep responded in a timely manner, apologized, and offered to refund the $4. In most jurisdictions including Massachusetts, that would be considered trying to settle the matter in good faith…not something worthy of suspicion. </p>
<p>Moreover, businesses…including small businesses are given some allowance in laws of most jurisdictions to make mistakes so long as a good faith effort is made to remedy them and/or make amends to customers once discovered. That seems to be the case with the restaurant in question as pointed out by that Georgetown law Prof…and didn’t warrant the HBS Prof’s over-the-top reaction. </p>
<p>Incidentally, that Brookline restaurant isn’t too far from where I was when I lived in Boston. </p>
<p>I was at a Dollar Tree last week picking up a few odds & ends. The cashier rang me up and handed me the reciept. I was supposed to get a penny back. I stood there for my “change” and she said “Oh, you want your penny?”. I was so taken aback. This isn’t the first time that this has happened. Where a cashier has assumed that they don’t need to give the change. I stood there waiting for it. I wonder how much money businesses accumulate in this manner. She thought I was nuts, but it was the principal. And the arrogance of her!</p>
<p>He was the food was “delicious.” Since he can no longer go there…probably not worth making the point. I would never burn a bridge at my favorite restaurant for something like this.</p>
<p>He could send a friend or send a relative and pay cash. Maybe wear a disguise? Didn’t Elaine try that in the Soup Nazi?</p>
<p>at&t was doing this to my phone bill for months. $8-9 more than it should be. I didn’t notice it right away. I discovered it by accident. I got it all back after talking to them for over an hour. Had I not noticed it and continue to pay, it would be a nice sum for them. If they did it to every one of their miliion customers as it turned out later they did, it’s more than a nice sum.</p>
<p>I believe that there are many, many fraudulent practices used by businesses of all sizes. The first one that comes to mind is my health insurance company’s practice of routinely denying valid claims and not paying them unless I’m persistent. I think that Edelman should reserve his aggressive tactics for these large companies with staffs of lawyers. Going after a small Chinese restaurant for a few dollars as he did comes across as bullying, especially given that he earns a huge salary sitting in a pleasant office and the restaurant owners slave away for long hours for much less. Go into a Chinese restaurant during a quiet time and you will see people prepping huge mounds of vegetables, etc. </p>
<p>At the grocery store I try to watch the computer screen as items are rung up, and it is very difficult because everything shows up at “list price” and then the discount is subtracted, and sometimes the discount doesn’t come off until the bottom of the screen. I thought I saw an item go by twice, and politely asked about it after we paid our bill. We went over to customer service and they checked - I was right - and they gave us the item for free, because they said cash register errors resulted in free items for customers. I think the idea is they never want to be accused of intentionally scanning an item twice, so if it happens accidentally they give you the item for free. </p>
<p>As for Chinese restaurants, I usually laugh when I look at the bill. A bunch of Chinese characters, barely legible numbers and a total miraculously appears at the bottom! </p>
<p>Feel free to consider it as a mark of excellent service, and allow me to continue to think that, if it were truly an unfortunate and rare incident, it might have taken a bit longer to understand the nature of the complaint. </p>
<p>But here is one positive twist for you. For one time, this is a subject where we can match a bunch of unrelated experiences, the polling of our plenty of friends and family, and the reading of countless discussion forums to match your typical references to others. And yes, Cobrat, there are plenty of experiences of people being overcharged by accident or routinely, and there is plenty of evidence that the operators who rely on such scheme are doing it as long as they can get away with it. A “getting away” that includes taking advantage of the fact that most people do NOT check their tickets well nor count their change with great attention. And if that doesn’t work, there is always the demonizing of the fool who wants to rage a crusade for a few cents or dollars. </p>
<p>In the meantime, most of us here know what type of stores or restaurants are consistently at the edges of honesty and courteous service, and which one could be managed with more “excellent customer service” in mind. Of course, perhaps you were a fan of Edsel Ford … the San Franciscan one that is! </p>
<p>In the story of Edelmann’s previous case of the Groupon coupon for the downtown Boston restaurant, I was pleased to see the restaurant outright banned the HBS professor from ever entering the establishment. “No soup (or sushi) for you!” </p>
<p>I heard this am that many of the students at HBS and Harvard in general are stepping away from this guy… he comes off elitist and a bully… things that Harvard tries to not have as an image. Not to mention that he really was being a jerk.</p>
<p>If the business gets an increase in revenues from this publicity, that’s good. If the customers learn to check the prices and their bills before paying, that is equally good. If the public at large learns about thieves, cheats, and crooks, that would be even better. Everyone wins here. </p>
<p>Well, safe and except for the professor who demonstrated that being intelligent is not the same thing as being smart. </p>
<p>One time I went on a big shopping spree at BJ’s. The place was packed. For some reason, I glanced at the receipt before I got out of the store, and noticed they’d charged me for an extra bag of dog food - it was a huge bag, and the cost was around $50. I had to stand in line for quite awhile to get the error fixed. It did make me wonder how often that happens.</p>
<p>Most friends who are Harvard alums and are on FB are posting the articles with their feelings of outrage over how this Prof is highlighting all the negative stereotypes about their alma mater. </p>
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<p>And again, Xiggi…you’re missing my larger point. </p>
<p>If HBS Prof Ben Edelman had accepted the good faith efforts of the restaurant when they apologized for the error and offered to refund the $4 overcharges, this wouldn’t have been news and a reasonably mutually satisfactory solution would have been achieved. </p>
<p>Instead, Edelman had to go over-the-top in using legal intimidation and threats and citing his HBS Prof status to summarily demanding $12 by citing a specific law in a misleading manner. </p>
<p>Interesting considering treble damages is only awarded if the case goes to trial, both sides get due process, AND THE JUDGE AT HIS/HER DISCRETION DECIDES TO AWARD TREBLE DAMAGES would it be so. In the process, he was rightly called out by a law Professor at Georgetown Law School for that. </p>
<p>And he rightly got roasted for it by that law Prof and the larger online community…including many Harvard alums.</p>
<p>Worse, this isn’t the first time he pulled such over-the-top stunts and acted way out of the warranted proportionality of the supposed offense…assuming it even existed which is questionable in the prior case. Especially considering nothing yet seems to have come of Edelman’s threat to file a complaint against a sushi restaurant with the Boston Licensing commission. </p>
<p>In short, he comes across as the type of attorney who’d write threatening letters he/she likely knows is iffy at best to gain compliance by intimidating those who aren’t knowledgeable about the law or their rights…like ones representing landlords trying to use dubious legal intimidation tactics to get tenants to give up/not fight for their rights or patent ■■■■■■ like SCO trying to assert specious claims of ownership over Unix/Linux code until they got slapped down hard by recent Federal rulings after they decided to sue IBM and it refused to take SCO’s BS lying down. </p>