"Boston.com wanted to paint me as a bad guy, and in general it’s their right to tell the story as they see fit."

"But my emails, right there for all to see, specifically indicated that I wanted the restaurant to refund all customers who had been overcharged. Somehow that key fact ended up totally missing from almost all the media coverage.... From my perspective, the most distressing aspect of the media coverage was how little attention the articles paid to my true motivations."

Said Ben Edelman, the Harvard professor whose email to a restaurant made so many people think he was a world-class asshole.

"I call on you to honor my three Osushi Groupon vouchers."

"I will argue that the City of Boston ought not renew such license to a restaurant that does not honor its contractual commitments."

That Harvard business professor, Ben Edelman, had another email exchange, one that hangs on the question whether a prix fixe constitutes an "offer" within the meaning of a Groupon deal that can't be used with other offers.

Maybe Edelman is in the middle of an elaborate project and in the end there will be a book in the tradition of "The Lazlo Letters."

"He tried to make a mountain out of a mole hill and wound up being badly mauled by angry moles."

Said Bob Boyd, commenting in the thread about the Harvard professor's bizarre email exchange with the Chinese restaurateur.

And I said:

Why would moles get angry if you expressed the view that their hill was actually a mountain? I would think that they'd either feel chuffed or they'd feel neutral and simply agree that it's a mountain as far as they are concerned. What is a mountain to a mole? I say their molehill feels like a mountain and that which we call a mountain lies outside of the perception of a mole.

AND: Caved and made a tag for "moles." I'm delighted with the results of adding it retrospectively to old posts... because there are 2 kinds of moles. I'm allowing them to play together in what we might called a game of tag.

"If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a Harvard Business School professor thinks a family-run Chinese restaurant screwed him out of $4..."

"... you’re about to find out."

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade writes: "I agree with the professor. He did the right thing. Most people wouldn't bother. He was doing the business owner a big favor and the owner blew it." And in person, he says: "You fell for click bait."

ALSO IN THE COMMENTS:  Robert Cook said:

I think the professor was right to question the price difference, and he should have accepted the offer of a $4.00 refund. That he insisted on a "3x" refund--$12.00--and kept escalating a minor matter in this way just shows him up as an entitled shit.

I responded:

If a business systematically overcharges everyone but give a refund and only a refund to any customer who: 1. Notices and 2. Confronts, there's no disincentive. This is why class actions were invented. You can make a lot of money taking small amounts from a lot of people. The remedy needs to be more than the small amount that gives back what you took from only one person.

I think this reality is hard to see because a Harvard professor is such a ripe target, and his tenaciousness in making his point is so unusual and so displayable on line.

The most interesting sentence in the correspondence between the professor and the restauranteur is: "The more you try to claim your restaurant was not at fault, the more determined I am to seek a greater sanction against you." 

ADDED: Even where the customer noticed and confronted, this restaurateur's first move was to say only that the website was "out of date for quite some time" and he'd "make sure to update it." I think many customers would simply back off and say something like "Thanks, I'm glad I could help you, and by the way, I really do love your restaurant." The professor teaches the law here, and there is a Massachusetts law that makes it "a serious violation to advertise one price and charge a different price." Do we believe in this kind of law or don't we? If we don't and we think the professor is a prick for being a stickler about it, then get rid of the law and stop burdening business owners with the appearance that there are rules that must be followed.