The disclaimer was there before. The restaurant mentioned it in their reply to him, and he said he didn’t think that would protect them because they knew about the problem for quite some time and did nothing about it. That was his theory, or the basis of his threats anyway.
Instead of buckling under the threat of his awesome dickishness they said they would let their counsel handle it and let him know. Then they made his douchebaggery public and he apologized and dropped the issue. Chances are if it went to court he would not have prevailed unless he could prove this was deliberate fraud and breach of contract and not a simple error covered by their disclaimer.
The other restaurant he tried this with before wrote back “good luck with your claim, we will not comply with any of your demands and if you set foot in one of our restaurants again we will have you escorted out by the police”. He dropped that one too.
In case anyone was wondering, here is the story about the other time. Edelman wanted to use his Groupons for the prix fixe menu, but the restaurant didn’t allow him to because it was construed as “any other offer”. Edelman threatened them by saying he would combat their licensing for food and drink. They basically told him to fuck off. Good for them.
Much like the recent Congressional staffer who “after many hours of prayer” realized she was wrong to make snarky comments about the Obama girls, I think if you have to reflect to realize you were a douche then you’re still a douche, but just a douche who’s sorry they got an avalanche of shit poured on them.
I wonder if Edelman is familiar with the existence of YELP or Harvard’s message boards where he could probably do more damage than the $12 and nobody would think he was being a dick.
So anytime a restaurant increases their prices, they are morally required to track down every menu previously handed out and replace them with new ones? Perhaps they should be required to put up a huge sign on their front door saying “Recent price increases inside!”. Maybe, now they found the error, they should poll every person who ordered from them as to what they thought they were going to pay, and then give them the difference.
Yes, they fucked up by not updating the website. Yes, they should have immediately given him his $4 back (but after he started with the threats, I’m fine with them telling him to go fuck himself). Yes, they made mistakes.
But the expectations expressed in this thread, and the conclusions of the necessity of some kind of governmental action, are totally over the top ridiculous.
HBS students have a campaign to raise contributions in $4 increments to the Greater Boston Food Bank, too; up to $5k or so and climbing. Plus Edelman now knows he’s a dick and that the whole world thinks so too. It remains to be seen, though, if he’s going to be allowed to lecture at HBS about how you can be right and still be wrong.
He might offer a lecture on not posting or emailing anything you don’t want blasted across the internet. Especially not when you’re a professor at a supposedly elite business school.
Of course not. But any prices posted on the premises should be up to date.
If you go through the drive-thru at a restaurant, and when you get to the window they charge you more than what it said on the menu board, it’s not good enough that they just didn’t get around to updating their price listings.
A website is more problematic: is it more like something posted on the premises, or more like printed information that was handed out? What are the expectations on keeping a website up-to-date? Technically, it can be updated as soon as anything changes, but in practice we know that doesn’t always happen.
I don’t necessarily buy that. I think that a lot of people are assholes as kids and then they get bullied because they are assholes, and then they grow up up and say I was bullied as a kid so now I’m an asshole, but they were really just assholes all along.
True that.
Reminds me of a few years ago when a flamboyant gay guy that I knew and a lot of other people knew and who I’ll call Daniel (since that’s not his name) got beaten up by a couple of sailors while on vacation in Boston. There was a short lived minor news frenzy and it was called a hate crime, while the people who knew him here- including several out-n-proud gays, myself included- all thought and said that we’d have to see video of the alleged bashing before we’d think anything more than “The asshole probably had it coming”. (He’d been “gaybashed” by more than one gay guy because he was just OBNOXIOUS and sexually harassing to good looking guys when drunk and not much better when sober.)
Walmart also posts “pictures” of their weekly sales ads. Would it be OK if once you got to the store, the prices were $1.00 higher per item?
If you only purchase one item that was advertised at $9.99, but rings up at $10.99, you might catch it, and either ask for the lower price, or decline to buy the item.
But if you have a cartful of a week’s groceries, you probably wouldn’t notice each price.
None of those say that a business must honor an advertised price. The principle of fariness is invoked, but over and over it is stressed that each case must be looked at individually. Also, Mr. Edelman’s complaint would likely fail the material test, as he admitted the food was delicious. Also, he had numerous opportunites to bring the difference to the attention of the restaurant before he paid for his meal.
Again: there is no law that I know of that forces a business to sell items only at advertised prices. And if there is one, I’ll bet doughnuts that it makes lots of exceptions: no business would ever be forced by law to sell an item for a price that is a typo or otherwise erroneous.
Again: this is not a bait & switch. The restaurant had the items ordered and provided them, just at a different price than the buyer initially thought was indicated. And the price change was not arbitrary, it was because of an error. The website, I’m sure has a verifiable publishing date, and since at that time the prices were accurate, I doubt they would face any sanctions from any government agency. I’d bet they be told or directed or advised to update the website, but since a 3rd party maintains it and the restaurant has no direct control over it, I doubt even that would be enforceable.
It’s shitty customer service if they left up last weeks weekly sales ad but went back to the original price.
If they put up an ad that they never intended to honor in hopes of drawing in customers they might meet the states guidelines for unfair or deceptive acts.
In either case I wouldn’t shop there again. Same applies to the restaurant.
In either case if I tried to demand three times compensation under the threat of legal action I’d be an asshole. Walmart wouldn’t and shouldn’t pay me three times without court action.
Well, thanks Snowboarder Bo. At least I know I exist in this thread. If you can fault the extremely direct and plain language I highlighted in the quote from the FTCA, I’m done here. Think I’ll go to 46th Street North and throw my research into the Quarry Landfill. Ta.
They can reasonably be expected to make their currently-published advertising accurate. Yes, an active (not archived) web site is current publishing.
I didn’t suggest that either. But that probably would regain a few customers they had lost in the course of (what we shall charitably call) the careless practice.
I don’t know who in this thread suggested government action was necessary. I certainly didn’t.
I wasn’t faulting it, I was referring to it. The requirements that have to be fulfilled for a complaint to have merit are multifold and I laid out a couple of areas where I didn’t think Mr. Douchenozzle could make a winning case and why.
But you made no arguments other than pasting some text and then quitting.
Yeah, as I noted upthread that is basically the worst case scenario, and I suspect that the owner was aware of the toothlessness of the consumer protection agency, at least in a vague sense. My reading suggests that persistent web mispricing by a sizable firm would be another matter, but that’s not the case here.
The total was about $53. $12/$53 is not half price. It’s more like 23% off.
And it may not have been bullying - it may have been getting the owner’s attention, which let’s remember was a 3 location business. It’s not like Edelman suggested this on round 1.
A $8 punitive demand by email on a $53 bill is bullying? Really? Irregular sure. Eyebrow raising ok. But bullying? It’s not like he was challenged to a dual.
I am outraged at the hyperbole engaged by Edelman’s opponents, just as I am oblivious to my own use of comparable rhetoric.
