Last week, San Francisco restaurant owner Phau Lam was charged with 32 felony counts in a credit card scam that saw him rack up more than $50,000 from over 100 victims who dined at Home Menu Restaurant, despite the restaurant being closed for over a year. When ABC News reporters confronted him back in the spring, he ran away, leaving his empty restaurant:
He took off and kept running until he was out of sight. Lam left the doors to his restaurant wide open. He was not ready for business. We found no food on the shelves, but two cash registers and three credit card machines were powered up and ready for action.Now, from a concerned citizen comes word that the official Home Menu site bears no mention of any closure, and you can still complete orders online per normal. Signs at the busy intersection of South Van Ness and Market advertise online ordering at homemenusf.com as if nothing has happened. Not even Yelp or Menupages have Home Menu listed as closed. But again, most troubling is the fact that official site—complete with "secure" credit card transactions—remains up and running. In other words, one of the biggest local dining scams in recent memory persists, albeit it in an altered state. How about some CLOSED notices around these interwebs? Thus concludes this Eater Public Service Announcement.
· Restaurant owner charged in credit card scam [ABC]
· Home Menu Restaurant [Official Site]
