I am MAD! Mad as hell! And I’m NOT gonna take this anymore!
Things are terribly wrong with this world.... and we (including myself) allow it to happen. Doesn't that piss you off? It pisses me off...
Scamming Restaurant ‘Jin Du’ busted! (+ a message to the scam artist)
This summer I was with my girlfriend in Berlin for 2 months, and from there we had a weekend trip to Szczecin, in Poland.
Because we are crazy about the oriental kitchen, we decided to find a suitable restaurant, which wasn’t difficult since a Chinese Restaurant named Jin Du was listed on top of pretty much every tourist guide for this city.
"Kewl" we think. A thought that we would reconsider later on….
On a Friday night we visited Jin Du and I have to say that our first impression was rather positive.
To begin with, we received excellent service by a mid-aged Polish woman.
At first we were surprised a bit, normally you’d expect a Chinese person, but hey, this hostess really did her best.
My girlfriend and I can’t speak the slightest bit of Polish, so therefor we got two menu cards in English.
De prices looked reasonable and about the food I can’t say anything else than it was stunning.
So the next evening after a day of sightseeing and what not, my girlfriend and I happened to pass by the neighborhood where Jin Du is located, and considering the good experiences of only a day before it was a logical choice to dine there again.
This time the friendly hostess wasn’t there, instead there was a white trash kind of guy.
I didn’t really trusted from the very beginning, even though he acted polite, his politeness seemed however fake and insincere.
On second thought I think this guy became highly enthusiastic as soon as we while entering the establishment greeted him in English.
A little bit TOO enthusiastic: when he asked if it was our first time in the restaurant and before we even could answer, he hopped with a big grin out back to find the menu, what became his fatal mistake.
The man bunny hopped his well fed round body back to our direction and we got the menu card (singular, more menus in English weren’t available all of a sudden, even though the restaurant was now practically empty and having two menu cards in English the day before) in such a way as if it was the holy grail.
"English menu" he added. No shit!
His fake enthusiasm bothered me already but it became more and more clear to me.
I opened the menu card, it was a collection of loose pages and Tipp-ex. How many clues for being ripped off does a human being need?!
And surprise surprise: with a number of prices fresh in the back of my head these prices were a lot higher (up to about 30%) than during the evening before, on each and every page.
Even the drinks were not alone more expensive, they were also in smaller quantities.
Clearly we had a menu for naive sheepish tourists. Only he has the bad luck that I don’t get fooled that easily.
And he REALLY has the bad luck that I’m the kind of person who likes to pwn the shit out of someone.
I stood up, walked to someone sitting by a small table and while I excused myself briefly but firmly, I grabbed his ‘usual’ menu card of the table.
In the corners of my eyes I saw that piece of white trash’s grin changing in a state of catatonic plerplexness within half a second. Security breach!
Delightfully garishly I placed the two different versions of menu cards next to each other and I began to take pics with my phone. (see: here and here)
Gotcha!!
As a bitten dog the man once so full of self confidence came to our table with the tail between the legs, sort of speak.
He asked with his ridiculously ‘innocent’ puppy face what we wanted to order, as if nothing ever happened.
I pointed him to the differences in prices and I demanded an explanation (even though I already knew very well that this all was just about making some extra money, but I was very curious to what he had to say about it).
With slight hesitation he explained that the more expensive version was the old menu of last year and that the cheaper version was the new menu of this year and that he accidentally gave us the old card.
Pffff… yeah right. And Poland is financially SUCH a prosperous country that deflation is totally normal there. Get real…
If I think back about his poor excuse I almost start to LOL, but during that moment I was not amused.
With a tone as if he’s Mahatma Ghandi himself he offered to might as well apply the "new" prices then. O rly?! Wow, what a great guy!
I looked at him in an intruding manner and literally said "no thank you…. I just lost my appetite", stood up and GTFO with my girlfriend to a nearby located Wapanese sushi-restaurant (where all the menu cards printed in several languages had the same damn price).
Well… in the Dutch version I promised to write a personal open message here to the scamming bastard, so here we go.
Dear mister scamming bastard. I KNOW YOU WILL read this because of the very nice postcard I’ve been sending your fat ass.
As you can see the card is posted in Denmark. That’s where I live and that’s where I make my money. And the Danish economy is gooooood, the very reason why many of your fellow countrymen move to Denmark.
So let’s make it clear that this is not about money, at all. With the money I make I wouldn’t miss a bunch of złoty’s more. Hell, I can shite out some of that crappy money of yours on the spot.
It’s about you ripping off innocent customers, people who come to your establishment and expect to be treated with honesty and respect. You totally rape that trust and respect by deliberately plotting and preparing your scam and lying straight into people’s faces. And it’s not yourself alone you make look bad because of it.
It’s safe for me to assume that your restaurant attracts a lot of tourists. It’s listed on most tourist guides and it’s right in the middle of your city.
O wait… of course you realize that… hell, that’s the very reason why you have several versions of menu cards in English, amirite you greedy pig?
And oh yeah, believe me when I say that your scamming is REALLY obvious, you’re a fucking amateur man, so I’m also quite sure that some tourists might notice.
The fact of the matter is is that most people are too damn chicken to open up their mouths so they swallow your bullshit. Not me however, I actually enjoy resisting. I hope you’re a masochist.
You know, many of those tourists are likely to go home with bad fucked up memories of Poland. That’s also the thing, a whole lot of people aren’t smart enough to realize that there’s a difference between individual scamming bastards (like yourself) and the behavior of a nation of people as a whole.
What I’m saying is that simpletons will think that nearly every Polish person will rip off people as soon as they get the chance to.
I am and I know better than that and my opinion about Polish people in general didn’t get any worse. But hey, since I can’t make the dumb prejudiced fucks of this world change their world perspectives (trust me, I tried), I might as well go for the source to do some whoop ass there.
SO STOP GIVING YOUR COUNTRY AND FELLOW COUNTRYMEN A BAD NAME BY QUITTING YOUR PATHETIC EFFORTS TO OBTAIN EXTRA MONEY FROM TOURISTS! I’M SERIOUS! YOU CAN TELL I’M SERIOUS BECAUSE I’M UNLEASHING THE MF’ING FURY OF CAPS LOCK!
It’s not like you really need that extra money. I mean look at your restaurant… the place is as fancy as hell! Gee, how could you afford all that nice stuff, hmm? You’re doing okay enough.
Time to neutralize all that extra money you made in an unfair way for a long long time, so I took the liberty of writing to just about every damn review-website that listed your restaurant.
That should drop down your revenue from now on. Still think you made a good choice by making those menu cards?
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