Harvard Business School Professor Goes to War Over $4 Worth of Chinese Food

Boston.com ^ | 12/9/14 | Hilary Sargent

[GQuagmire]

Ben Edelman is an associate professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets unit.

Ran Duan manages The Baldwin Bar, located inside the Woburn location of Sichuan Garden, a Chinese restaurant founded by his parents. Last week, Edelman ordered what he thought was $53.35 worth of Chinese food from Sichuan Garden

[Rodamala]

Sorry... if I offended any attorneys. Lighten up, Francis.

[Cvengr]

I wouldn’t mind eating at the restaurant, but I think I would shop for a different business school just to avoid this contagion.

[lee martell]

That menu sounded absolutely dee-licious! It was difficult to keep my mind on the stupid professor. Yes, the manager should have thrown a wad of dollars at this creep from the beginning, but with a request/condition that he take his ‘business’ elsewhere.

[don-o]

Keep posting that type of crap and you will find yourself lit up. Book it!

[maggief]

Twitter: @bgedelman

bgedelman@hbs.edu

[jttpwalsh]

Agreed, on all counts. Thanks for your reply !

[GraceG]

Sounds like a freeking lib, they love to spend other people’s money but are absolute skinflints with their own money.

[kalee]

No bets on that one, his aunt is Marian Wright Edelman.

http://bigstory.ap.org/photo/hillary-rodham-clinton-marian-wright-edelman-0

[RetiredTexasVet]

I would suggest the owner reject any online orders from the twit and require the man to appear personally to make, pay for and receive his order in order to preclude any misunderstandings.

[SkyDancer]

My complaint with some restaurants is when they kite up the tip. I had one place put a one in front of the tip increasing it ten-fold and then had the gall to tell me it was the credit card company that did it. I got a copy of the receipt where they put that “1” in front of the tip. I got the full refund of the meal after I had a lawyer friend call them up.

[SolidRedState]

I especially appreciate the fact that once Edelman told Duan he had turned it over to authorities, Duan said he would wait until they advised him what to do. ROFLMAO

So instead of getting his $4 back or even $12.00 the poofter is going to get probably nothing since I am sure the bureaucracy has much more important things on their “plate”.

[Rodamala]

Regardless, you aren’t getting your 4 dollars back. Book that... in red ink.

[jttpwalsh]

one place put a one in front of the tip

---

I used to audit restaurant receipts for a large company, in every incident, it was the server who did the misdeed. No establishment wants to get on the credit card companies radar screen for fraud - they will get bounced out of the program.

It never failed to amaze me, how many servers lost gigs with great tip income, in order to pad their earnings by a few bucks.

[Rodamala]

My complaint with some restaurants is when they kite up the tip...

That is precisely why I always put the currency symbol right next to (preceeding) the amount... even if they have the symbol preprinted on the slip, I ignore it and add my own, crowding the first digit.

[Omniscient Certitude]

I work in that area and have had lunch there. Good but not great, as it goes.

Many Chinese establishments still use paper slips and calculate the tax without regard for accuracy. Have you seen that? (8% is good profit).

In Massachusetts, Chinese joints are a mini casino making money selling drinks to the unemployed on food stamps (EBT) and cashing in on keno.

If they suck, just do not patronize them. That is why, besides a bad economy and high taxes, many small eateries are out of business.

[Rodamala]

If some schmuck wrote to me saying I owed him 4 dollars, I would blow him off as well... because, at my billable rate, I simply don’t have time for that... though this Edelstein dude, with his $800/hr billable rate, apparently does.

[jttpwalsh]

Thanks for the reply. On top of the things you mentioned, many (but not all) of the places that use paper slips, do not report all of their cash sales, just enough to avoid the tax man’s attention.

[funfan]

Or a Gruber.

[ansel12]

A guy complains about being overcharged from the menu price for his food delivery, and you post to me about your billable rate being too high to bother complaining?

I feel honored at your rates, how much money have you lost posting on FR today, since you have been doing it all day long and typing many posts?

[SkyDancer]

Started doing something like that. I put an = before and after the tip if the service is good. I still feel why should we pay their salary for them to do their job. But that’s another issue.