Complaining About a Restaurant Bill Backfires Against Attorney [e130]

The guys start the week by detailing the story of a Harvard professor who fought with a restaurant over a $4 discrepancy in his bill. They then answer, "At what point can I make my employees clock out but take care of non work activities at the office?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to the our podcast where we cover business in the news and answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundbusiness.com. Welcome. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: I don’t know why I’m very excited about this episode, mainly because we get to make fun of another attorney. I think that’s what it is. MATT: Yeah, you do enjoy that so I could see why you’re excited for this and I think this has actually gained some… people have heard about this – I don’t know – in the past week. Maybe by the time this episode comes out, more people would have heard of it and there’s more of a resolution to it. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: So, there’s this professor at Harvard Business School who went to this Chinese restaurant and ordered roughly $53.00 worth of food. I think there was an exact number – $53.35 of food. NASIR: Yeah, in case you were wondering, he ordered shredded chicken with spicy garlic sauce, sautéed prawns with roasted chili and peanut, stir-fried chicken with spicy – what is that? Capsicum? I don’t know what that is. MATT: I don’t know. NASIR: Braised fish fillets, Napa cabbage with roasted chili, and that’s it. Sounds like he has good taste. MATT: It’s a lot of things, too. So, hopefully, he had more than one person with him. Or just more than just him. So, he gets – like I said, - $53.35. He gets home, notices he got overcharged by $1.00 on every single item. NASIR: Wow. MATT: And we’ll have to link, there’s an email thread that goes back and forth between the two of them which we won’t go in full detail but it’s a pretty good read but… NASIR: If we can, hopefully, I will just put the image in. I don’t know if we have the rights to. We’ll see. MATT: Well, it’s kind of long, too. So, we’ll see. But the business writes back, as it should. You know, they’re apologizing, saying… Basically, you get to the point they said he didn’t really overcharge them. The menu items on the website were off by a dollar. They had since updated it. But, despite that, he would give them the $4.00 refund for the four items because it was overcharged by a dollar on each thing. This wasn’t good enough for this Ben Edelman. NASIR: Hold on. Technically, the restaurant didn’t offer the $4.00 refund right away. The restaurant’s first response was, “I apologize about the confusing—“ Confusion, I think that’s what he meant to say. “Our website prices has been out of date for quite some times. I will make sure to update it. If you would like, I can email you an updated menu.” Sent from an iPhone. So, he obviously didn’t put much thought into this. And then, after this guy, Harvard professor Ben Edelman, he responded with his response, then they offered a refund. MATT: Yeah, I guess. I’m skipping over pieces because there’s a lot of stuff back and forth. NASIR: It is, like, ten emails, for sure. MATT: It’s an important point, though. But then, he gets into this whole legal argument and how, under Massachusetts law, you can’t advertise one price and charge something, and I think that’s where the restaurant owner says, you know, “We technically didn’t overcharge you. The items were just listed wrong. We’ll still give you the refund anyways.” And he said, you know, “According to the law in Massachusetts, you actually have to give me three times what the difference was. So, instead of $4.00, I need $12.00,” and it just goes back and forth. He, at one point, tells him he reported them to the authorities. “I’ve already referred this matter to applicable authorities in order to attempt to compel your restaurant to identify the consumers affected,” blah blah blah.

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