Last Friday, Ben Edelman ordered $53.35 worth of food from Sichuan Garden in Brookline, Massachusetts. When Ben looked at the receipt closely, he noticed a discrepancy between the price on the website and what he was charged ($4 to be exact). Ben quickly went to work addressing this in an email with Ran Duan, the manager of Sichuan Garden.
Of note, Ben is a professor at Harvard Business School and does consulting on the side. According to Boston.com, he specializes in “preventing and detecting online fraud.” Needless to say, this wasn’t going to be your normal, run-of-the-mill back-and-forth between a customer and a restaurant manager.
In short, it devolves into “smoke-filled coffeehouse crap”, with a lot of legal mumbo jumbo not worth the $4 Ben was overcharged. But you know, something, something “the principle of it all.”
Innocent mistake from Ran Duan? Perhaps.
Overreaction from Ben Edelman? Absolutely.
Mister overcharged for Chinese food is weighing his legal options. Poor Ran and poor Sichuan Garden may end up in court when it’s all said and done.