Scammers Extort Restaurants + Sexual Harassment + Chargebacks + Maintenance & Repairs + PFAS Battleground

Beverly Kim owns two restaurants in Chicago and is no stranger to the ups and downs of reviews and criticism. But a series of one-star reviews posted to her restaurant Parachute’s Google business profile in early July raised an alarm.

"My initial reaction was, are they being racist? This is a Korean restaurant; maybe people aren’t understanding it," she said.

As it turned out, it wasn’t a racist attack, but it was a coordinated one. A new scam targeting independent restaurants across the country emerged a few weeks ago. First, scammers left multiple one-star ratings on restaurants’ Google listings. Then they emailed the restaurants to demand small cash payments in exchange for deleting the reviews.

While the restaurant industry has largely sidestepped the controversy raging in courthouses, state houses, and regulators’ offices over PFAS, six suits recently filed against quick-service restaurants suggests that the industry might not remain above the fray for much longer. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (known as "PFAS") is a catch-all term used to describe thousands of different "forever chemicals" that break down incredibly slowly over time and are found in any number of consumer products and especially in products’ packaging. Plaintiffs and consumer advocates have argued that these chemicals can lead to a number of negative health effects for humans and animals alike, including an increased risk of cancer and an impact on the body’s immune system.