Fairfax business owner puts out ‘bounty’ to identify frequent dine-and-dasher

FAIRFAX, Va. (7News) — Northern Virginia man Alex Kang’s birthday is in September, and he’s already shared the one gift that’s on his mind: Stopping dine-and-dashers at his Fairfax, Virginia, restaurant.

Kang owns the Okonomi Asian Grill, and he said since April, people have been ordering through the food delivery service DoorDash, but then canceled their orders after they picked up the food in person. He believes it started as a TikTok trend.

On Tuesday, Kang issued a $150 “bounty” for information to help identify a frequent perpetrator, a man who he said has been using aliases to carry out the scheme at least four separate times.

“I saw a cat poster in my neighborhood and thought I’d try something similar,” Kang told 7News.

As of Wednesday morning, Kang said he’s received tips from people with links to social media accounts likely connected to the individual, but nothing concrete.

Kang said the man used different names like Simbarashe, Walter, and Courtney to place the orders for himself and others, but would make excuses for the cancellations.

“…[H]e calls DoorDash personally and makes up an excuse. ‘The restaurant is closed’, ‘We didn’t receive the order’,” Kang shared on Reddit. “DoorDash doesn’t follow up properly and just shuts us down in those scenarios. It’s actually really dumb and frustrating on the restaurant end.”

The most recent incident happened on August 5 at around 8:30 p.m., when the alleged dine-and-dasher picked up an order for $26.50 and canceled it after receiving the food, according to Fairfax City police.

Kang told 7News that his workers thwarted one of the attempts, and would not give him the food until he reordered the food. Kang said he wasn’t there at the time.

Reports were filed with Fairfax city police for each incident, but Kang said they haven’t been able to help much. Fairfax City police said they caught another person connected to the scheme, but the case remains inactive until they can identify the man.

After the first incident, Kang said the responding officer laughed at how bizarre the situation was.

“I get why she was so confused and laughed about it,” Kang told 7News over the phone. “The amount is so little it’s not really worth their time.”

Another officer tried to help Kang, but Kang said there wasn’t much the officer could do at the time.

According to the DoorDash Merchant Help website, merchants aren’t always immediately notified when a person cancels their order. Kang and Fairfax City police said DoorDash hasn’t reimbursed Okonomi Asian Grill for the incidents.