Posted on 12/10/2014 7:16:00 PM PST by Impala64ssa
..that overcharged him $4
Last week, Ben Edelman, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, ordered takeout from a local Chinese restaurant.
Upon his return, Edelman discovered the restaurant, Sichuan Garden in Brookline, Mass., had overcharged him a total of $4 on his $53.35 order of shredded chicken with spicy garlic sauce, sautéed prawns with roasted chili and peanut, stir-fried chicken with spicy capsicum and braised fish filets and Napa cabbage with roasted chili.
Now most people in this situation might call the restaurant to point out the error, get a refund or future credit for takeout, or just swallow the $4. But Edelman, who received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and a law degree from Harvard Law School, fired off a series of emails to the restaurant, threatening legal action and vowing to report the incident to the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Division. Ran Duan, who helps his parents run the family-owned restaurant, explained the prices on their website were outdated.
"I apologize for the confusing [sic]," Duan wrote. "Our websites prices has been out of date for quite some time. I will male sure to update it, if you would like I can email you an updated menu."
Edelman continued:
In the interim, I suggest that Sichuan Garden refund me three times the amount of the overcharge. The tripling reflects the approach provided under the Massachusetts consumer protection statute, MGL 93a, wherein consumers broadly receive triple damages for certain intentional violations. Please refund the $12 to my credit card. Or you could mail a check for $12 to my home:
When Duan offered to refund Edelman the original overcharge, Edelman went into lawyerly overdrive:
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Is it Stupid Day at Harvard? Never mind, that' every day. Maybe if the Prof was nice about he might have gotten some free egg rolls on his next order to comp for the error. Or is Prof Edelman shaking down the Duan family because he's...he's...GASP!...RACIST against Asian people?
The $4 is the abuse fee.
Cartwright! Cartwright!
No class jackass.
/sarc
Once this went public the jackass has backed off and apologized.
Wasn’t there a case like this a few years ago, involving a professor and a Chinese-owned laundry?
Where the plaintiff ended up losing everything he had over a dispute over a misplaced pair of pants?
It was a judge.
In fine Harvard -Gruber style this pompous jerk has apologized for being an ass, but only after being publicly shamed online. There is probably a requirement that one has to be an arrogant prick to find employment at Harvard, a discredited institution.
What a little bitch.
“Prof” Edelman is part of the Gruber clan of self-serving a$$holes who somehow have come to the incorrect conclusion that they are “smarter” than the rest of us! When I think of the “universities” in Boston, I am reminded of the line by Al Pacino in The Scent of a Woman: “if I were the man I used to be, I’d take a flamethrower to this place!” He actually misspoke, the word should have been “these places.”
Scroll down and see what the Yelp crowd thinks of Edelman.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/sichuan-garden-brookline
It’s a very popular restaurant.
.
Is he Crimson-faced with shame?
Know it all Harvard prof; next he'll run for office...
I was once in a meeting with about a dozen lawyers where we were discussing a problem with a judge. One of the lawyers who was sitting right next to me said, “I have no problem suing other lawyers. I would sue my own mother. I would even sue you!” as he tried to intimidate me.
I looked at him and said, “I follow the rules of the Italian judiciary system!” He did not say another word.
Everyone including me just burst out laughing at his “non response.”
I keep a book handy in my office, even though I am not an attorney. It is “The Law Governing Lawyers, National Rules, Standards, Statutes, and State Lawyer Codes”. It does come in handy when someone like the guy in this news story oversteps the boundaries. First thing I would do is find out who his clients are and become an instigator... Sun Tzu was a wise man.
Sounds as though the customer has a fool for an attorney!
I've never eaten here so the rating is irrelevant, but the Edelman thing has me annoyed enough to comment:First thing to note for everyone out there; no Asian person would eat out of a bunch of cardboard boxes. The fact that he is too lazy to actually sit down in a restaurant and eat like a civilized person already says a lot about his likely wanting social skills. The only thing that can be legitimately eaten from boxes is pizza. Despite the portrayal in TV and movies, eating Chinese food from boxes is déclassé in the worst way.
Secondly, Edelman probably suffers from small member syndrome or was perhaps beaten by his older siblings. He feels the need to flex his "obviously" superior position in society to essentially bully the regular folk to remind them of their status. There's a very popular description for people like this. It starts with a "d" and ends in "bag". In a recent book, The Seven Deadly Virtues, the author Andrew Ferguson writes that:
" certain forms of ignorance are available exclusively to intellectuals who know so much that they have forgotten how much they don't know "
This description seems apt for Edelman who, while possibly is adept at teaching negotiation, is most certainly a boor in real life and not really that good at it himself. I'm sure his classes will be the hot ticket on campus now. Amusingly, this follows right on the heels of the outing of his kindred spirit over at MIT, the now infamous Jonathan Gruber. He of course publicly stated that the American voters were "too stupid" to understand the Obamacare construct.
Thirdly, since Edelman offers to be mollified by payment by the restaurant of an amount triple the offending error, I would think that opens him up for a charge of extortion. Perhaps some of his Harvard Law buddies can make an example out of him.
That Yelp reviewer is as articulate as the 2 Cambridge boobs,and has more decency than either one of them.
That was quite a humorous diatribe.
.
These schools seem to produce a lot of book smart people, many of them short on decency and common sense. The may want to remember the following.
“Always remember to be humble!
You are only a visitor, subject to recall at any moment. You are no more than a speck of dust within the scope of time, space and eternity. All granted by the good grace of your creator”
The eatery’s business is now booming. The ‘professor’ is being drawn and quartered several times per hour. This has already been settled, but news travels in slow waves across our vast continent. So expect new expressions of disgust and sympathy to keep popping up for the next week or two. The story is so effective because this customer satisfies nearly every stereotypic negative character trait most attribute to Harvard and to lawyers.
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