Actually, how about a compromise: I wouldn’t have tipped the delivery driver, and then he can have the 4$ after he gets his boss to fix things. That oughtta settle this thread down.
I think the guy ended up looking a little bit dickish, but the restaurant owner was the bigger asshole at the beginning of the email chain. After a while it just became pointless and nitpicky arguing that’s better suited to sdmb threads.
Not offering a a refund in the first response is unacceptable to me. If a business makes a mistake, it should at the least compensate for the error. Many businesses will overcompensate for an error because of the hassle involved for the customer to get the issue corrected.
I wonder if the guy would have gotten so worked up if he was offered a $4 refund in the first place. Although, he was pretty quick to jump to treble damages. I think I would have given the owner at least one more chance to make good on the mistake.
The Lanham Act applies to this how? Do you think throwing shit at the wall is gonna save your ass here? It won’t.
The Massachusetts Better Business Bureau? What the fuck would they do?
Dude, you don’t even know what “false advertising” is.
You’re an ignorant loudmouth douchebag is what the evidence is pointing to now. Prove your case or shut up, asshole.
He waited all of one email before going into his bullying lawyer crap. He would have done that no matter what the response from the restaurant was going to be. He’s done it before.
Do you honestly think this guy, a guy who would go so far for a fucking $4 mistake, would just let it drop if the restaurant immediately offered to give him $4 dollars? No fucking way. Hell, he wouldn’t even accept their $4 dollars, he wanted treble damages and to report them to the authorities. He’s a bully and a douchebag, and that’s what they do.
Then why the hell are you blathering on about having to come out “guns ablazing” and that polite requests get the run around? Sheesh.
How doesn’t it apply? What else is it supposed to be about?
How is this not the BBB’s jurisdiction? What else are they supposed to do?
And I may be ignorant, but your rudeness is hardly helping your case.
The store owner knew for some time that he was giving low prices on his website. Who cares how much of an asshole the customer was? This outrage is a scientific example people of hating on the rich guy given two assholes.
If you think the Better Business Bureau has a “jurisdiction,” maybe this isn’t the topic for you.
All right. Wrong use of the word. How about sphere? Turf? Authority?
BBBs (all the ones I’ve ever heard of) do not intercede in disputes or try to get businesses sanctioned by legal authorities.
The exist to promote a positive image of businesses in general, and to collect funds for rating companies (sometimes in highly dubious fashion).*
*Apparently Hamas is a BBB member in good standing.
Isn’t that kinda the point of a Pit thread? That a guy is an asshole and we get to make fun of him?
Which one is the “rich guy”? The professor or the son of the restaurant owner?
Edelman provided a valuable service pointing out this discrepancy and it was a kindness of him to settle for 1/2 off on his meal. I would think free food for life and a back rub would have been more proportionate. After all, he did point out a mistake on the internet.
I kid and I’ve shifted my position. Speaking generally and without accusation, I don’t want to live in a world where businesses yank their customers around with bogus pricing. But I now realize that I also don’t want to live in a world where businesses have to deal with all manner of piddling and obnoxious requests, or at least more than they do now. Which I understand is quite a lot.
Best Practices for Commercial Disputes: The Customer
This is general advice. Obviously it makes a difference whether you’re speaking with Ran Duan of Sichuan Garden or Rachel from Cardholder Services. I ignore that here.
Plot an escalation strategy and ramp up the intensity slowly. During round 2, it’s probably better to discuss “Misunderstandings” than the law. Maybe, in round 4, you are “Puzzled”. Folllowing Joey P’s story, make sure you know what you want: otherwise you waste each other’s time. Email is a courteous place to start, but after a certain point a telephone call might be needed to straighten matters.
Deanna Sclar, who wrote about good ways for women to handle automotive related complaints, recommends combining friendliness, sympathy and inflexibility. She expects her car mechanic to be a good willed, kind, loving, creative individual and will listen with sympathy to their problems. Then she says things like, “Yes I understand the difficulty – and I must have this corrected”, or “Gee, that’s really a problem. I know how hard it is to deal with something like that-- and what can you do to correct this situation?” Or that’s the spirit anyway.
Then she works her way up the authority tree with the same shtick. I assume she’s asking for the equivalent of $4 and an updated website. Finally, “…most people who handle complaints have been trained to deal with hostility, suspicion and anger, but very few have any defenses against friendliness, trust and compassion. So try it. What can you lose? You can always bring the big guns out as a last resort!”
I once had to bring out the big guns. It was during the 1980s: I was one of the early (but not earliest) victims of identity theft: they called it, “The Nigerian Connection.” Although the problem had existed for a little while, none of the 3 credit agencies had fixed procedures to deal with the situation (later they would realize that individuals were a potential profit center: they could sell them credit monitoring services). So while they sent me a credit report (as required by law) it was difficult to read and the advice they gave was… incomplete. I spare details.
Anyway I called one of them and asked for some information about my (damaged) credit report. They couldn’t tell me: you see they were moving and they couldn’t access customer accounts. (I unfortunately don’t recall how long it would be before they were back up, but given my temperament I certainly would have waited a week. I don’t even know if they provided an estimate: remember I wasn’t a client; I was raw material.) I had about 8 fake credit cards to deal with and I wanted to clear my credit rating. I was willing to do leg work, but I needed some information. Sorry they said: no go.
I had visited a law library though and had some familiarity with the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1972. (Laws were later strengthened in 1996, so a lot of this nonsense disappeared. Though my reading told me that before 1972, you couldn’t even obtain your own credit report. It was a secret between the agency and your banker.) So I told the credit reporting agency that they were in violation of the law yada yada. I might have asked them who would be the best person to report their criminal activity to. I was escalating.
The office worker at Trans Union got pissed and irate. But she also addressed my problem. “Turn over the document: look at the 3rd column: that’s your list of codes. This one means this, that one means that. Satisfied buddy?” Ok, she didn’t say, “Buddy”, but this wasn’t a friendly interaction: she was snappish. I had tried to be nice before getting blusterous. Anyway, now I had something I could work with. Good day ma’am.
Last decade I had another identity theft incident as it happens. Much better cooperation: there are procedures in place now. I certainly wouldn’t call it a breeze (I accumulated well over an inch of papers) but I had no complaints. Consumer protection laws really do make a difference IMO, though mostly they operate without any sort of governmental notification at all, never mind official action. They provide a sort of reference point: I suspect in many cases firms are more wary of the publicity associated with breaking a law than the official sanction itself.
There was no special “escalation strategy” needed here, though. If the restaurant doesn’t do the right thing on first notice, the next (and only further) step is to slam them–detail their duplicity–on the review sites.
We should execute Comcast. Pour encourager les autres…
I suppose so but you can be sure that service and food quality has never been higher and they are not overcharging anyone anymore.
Also I think its right that the authorities should be getting involved because the restaurant owner could very well be using this to hide profits from the tax man.
I think this whole thing also proves the line “Your messing with the wrong guy”.
I know one small restaurant owner who was being yanked around by his landlord but said restaurant was also the fave of a prominent TV Newsanchor and he told him “If he gives you anymore problem you call me and I’ll be putting a tv camera in his face”.
The latter would not cause any great disruption to the status quo. I would expect in response all vendors would either put a disclaimer on their websites that all prices are subject to change at any time and that the listed price is just a guide, or businesses simply wouldn’t have prices listed. Both are great for consumers!
All right. Thank you. I stand corrected.
Well in some ways they do anyways with coupons or running specials, one can often get something for a different price. I bought something the other day off Amazon for about $50 less because they were having an “Instant Sale”.
Really the only thing you can do is ask the person on the phone for a price breakdown when you place the order or check the receipt when you get the delivery. Assuming of course they wont suddenly not speak english.
Well, my point was that if you’re going to take on a business for the public good, you should do it properly. I then sketched what properly means in a general context.
Unintended consequences: small
I don’t accept your hypothetical by the way. Keeping a website updated isn’t that hard. Fine print disclaimers could still run afoul of misleading advertising rules. If businesses didn’t list prices at all, they would see a drop in telephone orders.
The real problem in the hypothetical comes with honest mistakes, like listing a refrigerator for $7.99 rather than $799. But honestly Big Guv typically isn’t transparently and systematically unreasonable in practice; though there will be occasional lawsuits and misleading news reports along such lines. Business does possess, you know, lobbyists, lawyers and professional whiners.
At the other extreme, if jerk-me-around web pricing was ubiquitous, phone orders would take longer to place as consumers verified each and every price. Which wastes everybody’s time and resources. The enforcement of fair deal/open pricing standards helps both business and consumer.
Peremensoe - I’m suggesting that slow escalation implies that eg nasty reviews can wait until step 3 or 4. Though a middling review which details the business’ speed in correcting their errors would be a fair followup to a satisfactory conclusion. YMMV of course: I was laying out general principles.
[quote=]
““In the interim, I suggest that Sichuan Garden refund me three times the amount of the overcharge.”
[/quote]
Just to clarify, I don’t read that as a “demand” for triple damages.