photo by: Courtesy: Burgers by Bigg's

The Jay Hog burger and fries are pictured at Burgers by Biggs in west Lawrence.

I guess you could say we have a modern-day Hamburglar on our hands. A false Groupon ad for Lawrence’s Burgers by Biggs that we reported on earlier this week indeed was the act of a criminal and has become the subject of a criminal complaint, Groupon told me.

I’m not sure how likely it is that anyone is going to get apprehended for the fraud, but Groupon said it has refunded the money of every customer who purchased the fake offer that promised highly discounted food from the west Lawrence restaurant.

While it is uncertain whether the internet scammer who falsely placed the ad will be brought to justice, the local food pantry Just Food is expected to get something out of the episode. A Groupon representative said it was making a $1,000 donation to Just Food in the name of Burgers by Biggs in the wake of the incident that left the Lawrence restaurant with several unhappy customers.

As a reminder, we reported on Tuesday that several Lawrence residents had seemingly fallen victim to a scam when they purchased a Groupon voucher promising $70 worth of food and drink for $39 at Burgers by Biggs. The problem with the voucher was readily apparent to Biggs owner Doug Holiday. He had never heard of the deal and certainly hadn’t contracted with Groupon to start spreading the offer all over the internet.

For days, Holiday worked to get the offer removed from the Groupon website, but had no luck in doing so, and also struck out in getting a consumer protection case opened on the matter at the Kansas attorney general’s office.

But after the Journal-World wrote about the case, the offer got removed and he did hear back from Groupon with a bit of an explanation.

“Evidently someone contacted Groupon and said they worked for Burgers by Biggs and wanted to do a Groupon,” Holiday said about the explanation he was given. “They gave Groupon a bank account number and said that was a Burgers by Biggs bank account. But it seems like Groupon didn’t check it out or anything.”

A representative with Groupon didn’t get into those specifics in an email to the Journal-World, but largely confirmed the nature of the incident.

“We believe that someone falsely claimed to be a representative of the business to set up an unauthorized promotion, and we will be turning this matter over to local law enforcement to investigate,” Nicholas Halliwell, a spokesman for Groupon, said via email.

Halliwell said that the individual who set up the deal didn’t end up profiting off the scam. He said Groupon had not yet transferred any money to the false Biggs account because none of the vouchers had yet been redeemed.

That wasn’t for a lack of trying. Holiday said he had multiple customers try to redeem a voucher, which required him to deliver the bad news that they had been scammed. Holiday said he hoped the announcement by Groupon would help his customers understand that he didn’t have anything to do with it. Groupon said 20 of the vouchers were purchased and that it has provided refunds for all 20.

“I’m glad it is resolved, but I hope Groupon sets up some sort of safety net so this doesn’t happen to other businesses because it sounds like a form of identity theft to me,” Holiday said.

The message I got from Groupon gave no indication of how often this type of fraud may be happening in the Groupon system. Holiday said his conversation with a Groupon representative indicated the company didn’t have much to go on, perhaps just an email address and a bank account number. Holiday said there were some indications that both of those may have been connected to foreign accounts.