High-end restaurants warned of new scam involving bogus wine shop and fake reservations

A new kind of scam targeting upscale restaurants has been exposed. Scammers posing as customers reserve tables, deceiving eateries into buying wine from bogus shops. The TikTok account, ambersmixedfamily, shared a video warning about this new type of con targeting high-priced restaurants.

Ammy, the account owner, shared a chat conversation where a man approached the restaurant via Line, a messaging app, to reserve a table for 24 guests. He emphasised that several important guests would be present and ordered specific expensive foods: three each of river prawns, abalone, pork loin, grouper, and crabs, totalling over 18,000 baht.

Ammy’s mother, who owns the restaurant, found this suspicious, as they had never encountered such a situation in their 20 years of operation. Hence, they asked for a deposit, which is typically not required. However, the man insisted on paying in full.

When they sent him the bank account details for the transfer, he was confused.

“Is the account holder a woman?”

Initially, they didn’t think much of it. They later realised he asked this to forge a deposit slip, which incorrectly used the title “Miss” for the account holder’s name, which is Ammy’s mother. The slip also lacked a QR code, so the restaurant asked for another. The man claimed he would contact his accounting department.

The man then sent a picture of a wine bottle, asking if the restaurant had it in stock. This reminded Ammy of a recent news story about a similar scam.

The scammer asked the restaurant to buy the wine from a fake shop, deceiving them into transferring money. The restaurant called the company named in the transfer slip and found out that no such reservation had been made. The company also revealed that several restaurants had been targeted this way.

Luckily, Ammy’s restaurant did not fall for the scam. They hadn’t started preparing the food or transferred any money to buy the wine.

Regardless, this incident serves as a stern warning to restaurants to be vigilant against potential scams. Scammers can disguise themselves in myriad ways, and in this case, restaurants need to be strict when dealing with customers.

Follow more of Thaiger’s latest stories on our new Facebook page HERE.