LAS VEGAS (KTNV) – A suspected scam targeting restaurants in Chinatown. Messages with requests for payment and threats of legal action! Restaurant owners are warned to stay vigilant and not fall for this suspected scam.
Angry messages sent to a Chinese restaurant owner in the valley demanding payment on Chinese social media platform WeChat. But the owner believes the demand could be a real scam!
Here’s how it works: the person orders takeout or delivery and then claims to “find” a piece of a metal scrubber in their food and says it hurt their child. Pictures are sent along with claims that the restaurant will pay for medical expenses or otherwise. The owner says she was shocked when she received this message last month.
“We fear that it is difficult to do business at the moment. We’re afraid they’ll spread it and say my restaurant did this and that. “
Jun Ren owns a restaurant in Chinatown. She wants it not to be mentioned as she fears that the scammers may persecute her business for speaking up. Ren says she got the message through WeChat demanding payments of more than a thousand dollars.
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“In America they said if a child is injured, how can you not pay a thousand dollars or two for the injury? I don’t think I even see how it all escalated so quickly, ”she said.
Ren became suspicious. She spoke to other local Chinese restaurant owners on a WeChat group where they also received the same exact pictures in the same scenario. Another owner actually paid money directly. Ren believes there are a few reasons they are being targeted.
“Our English is not very good and the money they want is not very high,” she said.
Shannon Yang runs the Chinatown Vegas website and is also part of the WeChat group. She says at least six Chinese restaurants in the valley have received the news and threats in the past few months, most recently last week. She says $ 2,000 is a lot for so many restaurants and finds it unfortunate that these owners are being targeted.
“With scammers now targeting companies to get more out of them, it’s very heartbreaking,” said Yang.
Yang says the scammers are likely a group of Chinese as the interactions were all in Mandarin with different phone numbers. She has contacted the FBI and is warning other owners to be vigilant if they encounter anything like this.
“If you suspect something is wrong, it is still wise to look around,” she said.
Ren says she believes the suspected scammer is targeting other restaurants, not just Chinese ones, and doing her part in getting the word out on WeChat.
“I’m sending this warning to others so they don’t fall for it. I hope no one else does what I almost did, ”she said.
We asked the FBI for a comment and the agency says it cannot confirm or deny that an investigation is taking place.
