It should have been an ordinary Thursday night last week at Bangkok smokehouse The Smokin’ Pug when a man called to book for 20 people the following evening. The man, Anon, said it was for a company gathering. What the restaurant found unusual was that Anon wanted to pay in advance.
“He asks to preorder which is very normal for us, but we never ask for prepayment,” restaurant owner Dana Garber told Coconuts. “He insisted on prepaying, which was a red flag.”
The man sent a transfer slip totaling THB16,689 that, according to Garber, was fake as no money ever came. By 4pm the next day, three hours before the reservation, the man asked via Line chat for the restaurant to find two expensive bottles of wine they didn’t have in stock. Anon mentioned a friend he knew who could get the wines, but the restaurant would have to pay first.
Garber said the restaurant manager refused, which caused the man to get “a bit aggravated and aggressive.”
“Now realizing we won’t purchase the wine, he cancels the booking minutes before,” Dana said. “It was a drawn out scam and the guy kept our staff going for hours over Line.”
What Garber described as a failed attempt to scam his restaurant was similar to accounts from at least two other restaurants this month, both of which also involved preordering wine.
Bangkok burger joint Fat Cow shared the deets of what happened on Aug. 12.
The restaurant said it received a reservation for 25 guests around 10pm, also by a man named Anon. Responding the next day, the restaurant said that the customer asked to pay in advance.
“They pre-ordered for a total of THB19,600 food items,” a Facebook post by the restaurant read. “After, they asked for banking details to pre-pay this.”
The Fat Cow stated that the customer sent them a transfer slip that confirmed the payment. However, like The Smokin’ Pug, no money came.
“We called them to say that the money did not arrive,” The Fat Cow said in its Facebook post. “They checked and said something about delay.”
Coconuts has seen both transfer slips sent to The Fat Cow and The Smokin’ Pug. Both transfer slips were sent through the A-Mobile banking app. In both slips, the total payment can be seen as well as the names of both Dana Garber and owner of Fat Cow, Manuel Lucien.
Close to the arrival time, the customer asked The Fat Cow for two specific wines, which the restaurant responded would be impossible to order at the last minute.
The customer said they knew of a shop that would have the wines. It was a LINE account with the name “Good Wines.” The total cost of both wines would be THB29,000. The restaurant asked the person to transfer the fee for them to order, but the man said he could not while promising to pay. The restaurant declined, and after some discussion, canceled the booking.
It was at that point that the would-be scammers kept insisting they buy the wine, to which they refused.
Manuel doesn’t think it’s a legitimate wine shop.
“It is not an actual shop in my opinion,” Manuel told Coconuts. “They direct you to a Line account. This account has been changing names several times in the last week.”
Presumably, had any of the restaurants paid for the wine, the guests would never come and the wine wouldn’t have either. But the money the restaurant had given would be gone.
“I really don’t understand the scam. I think the goal was to get us to transfer money back once they canceled,” Garber said.
Interestingly, like these two restaurants in Bangkok, a Mexican restaurant faced a similar incident in Chiang Mai.
The Mexican Grill in Chiang Mai told Coconuts it had received a call from a woman asking to book a table for 23 people. She called around 2pm and wanted to book for 6.30pm later that day.
“My restaurant is small and I told her need order first so I can prepare,” the restaurant told Coconuts. “Then she added my Line account and I sent the food menu for her to order.”
The woman said her boss wanted to drink a certain wine bottle which the restaurant did not have and offered alternatives. The woman instead claimed that she knew a Line account of a wine shop that would have the wine she wanted. She said that this shop would pay for all the food and wine.
But no money ever came, and the booking was canceled. “Wasted my time,” the restaurant told Coconuts.
Thailand has seen multiple elaborate scams in which scammers trick unsuspecting victims into surrendering large sums of money, usually with no recourse available.
