Restaurant scam is new twist on old ploy
| Friday, Jun 25 2010 04:51 PM
Last Updated Friday, Jun 25 2010 04:51 PM
The scam sounded plausible at first. Who wouldn't want 250 caesar salads?
Things didn't get suspicious until the anonymous caller asked to overpay the bill by $1,100 -- supposedly for the delivery service -- and have the difference sent to Texas by Western Union.
That's when the general manager of the Rocket Shop Café on South Union Avenue called off the order.
But orders continued to come in by phone for payment by credit card over the last few months. Next it was 250 chicken sandwiches with fries. As recently as this week there was an order for pulled-pork sandwiches with chips for 250 people.
The restaurant's general manager, Michael Harmon, quit taking the orders for what the caller said were large events in town. The requests just didn't make sense.
"We aren't a catering company," he said, adding that he has come to suspect that the credit card had been stolen, in which case he might have lost thousands of dollars if he had carried out the orders.
He was right -- it was clearly a con, said Vickie Sanders, assistant director of business services for the Better Business Bureau serving Central California.
She said the only thing unique about it was that such schemes tend to focus on small businesses that sell machinery and equipment. Owners of these businesses tend to be so grateful to get an order that they overlook warning signs.
"I've never heard of anybody trying to order caesar salads, so you do have a novel twist to the scam," Sanders said.
Two aspects of the scam should tip off business owners, she said. First, orders come in by "TTY" phone relays for the deaf, in which the actual caller's voice is absent. That may be designed to build sympathy, she said.
Another giveaway is when the supposed customer wants to overpay and have money sent to a third party.
"Right then and there stop," she said.
