Scam Alert for O’Fallon, IL – Public Notice – Attempt to defraud the owners of Zapp Noodle Thai Restaurant and 3 Zapp Bar, which will be opening soon.
O’FALLON, IL (STL.News) Scam Alert – In a sick attempt to defraud citizens in O’Fallon, IL, the scammers sent an email to the owner of Zapp Thai Restaurant, LLC d.b.a. Zapp Noodle Thai Restaurant, and 3 Zapp Bar, which has not opened as they are waiting for their liquor license, which remains pending at the city of O’Fallon, IL.
The restaurant received an invoice from a suspicious email for a significant amount, demanding payment via wire rather than a check on Friday, October 24, 2025. The email came from CityOfFallonSt.ClairCountyIL@usa.com. This website, USA.com, is suspicious. It does not have an SSL certificate for the domain, and if it is a legitimate website, it is not protecting the public from bad actors using it. We highly recommend AVOIDING this website.
After carefully examining the email, a representative of Zapp Noodle Thai Restaurant, LLC visited the city with a check with a significant amount of doubt and suspicion, only to discover and be confirmed by city officials that the email and invoice were an attempt to defraud the owner of Zapp Thai Restaurant, LLC and the partners of 3 Zapp Bar.
After discovering this information from the city officials, which we are grateful for, we have turned the situation over to them and their police department for further investigation.
It appears AI may have written the email. Use this as a reminder to suspect everything and anything that doesn’t look normal.
We suspected something was wrong because the scammer was acting in the following ways:
- Not using an illegitimate email address at USA.com, which we would highly advise against visiting this site
- Scammers invoiced the restaurant’s owner and used the owner’s home address rather than the entity’s address.
- Requesting funds to be wired, but not providing wire instructions without the request being emailed to them
- They demanded money before money was due
- The amount of the invoice was $4,800, which is thousands higher than it should be
We requested the wire instructions to see what would happen because I believed they were dumb enough to give it, which would make it easier to track them down.
We will do everything possible to convict these scammers. Yes, naturally, this article was published after the fact to avoid scammers from avoiding the trap.
This is an example of how AI and excessive information online can be used in harmful ways.
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