S'pore influencer called out for going MIA after asking Thai eatery for 'collaboration'

There's no such thing as a free lunch... or dinner for that matter.

One influencer reached out to a local Thai restaurant on Apr 2, asking if they would be interested in collaborating for a food media tasting.

Marcus Lo said he had 23,000 followers on TikTok and 2,300 followers on Instagram and offered to post two to three Instagram Stories and a TikTok post.

The restaurant, Chiangmai Thai Kitchen, said they would give him $100 shop credits for a food tasting in return for three to five Instagram Stories and a TikTok post.

The influencer then arranged to visit the eatery on Apr 29 for dinner with his party but subsequently went MIA.

After no updates, Chiangmai Thai Kitchen started messaging him on May 19 but failed to get any response.

They then posted screenshots of their conversation and included one of the Instagram Stories he posted while they tried to contact him.

The restaurant wrote in a Facebook post on May 27 that they wanted to warn other food vendors about the influencer.

"Can post IG stories and TikTok but can't reply to messages," they said.

"Market are bad now (sic)... $100 of food we might as well give to those who really need... We are sorry that we thought we could gain some exposure [through] him also."

They cheekily added: "We also 5kplus folllowers on IG and 2kplus on FB. Any merchant want to sponsor us?"

After the restaurant exposed him, Marcus finally contacted them and pleaded for them not to 'ruin' him.

He also commented on the post on May 28 to 'publicly apologise' and said that he had missed their messages.

Netizens were not convinced. One wrote: "Post go viral [already] then suddenly [remember] to check DMs."

The restaurant has updated their post to confirm that the influencer had contacted them and sent the video he made of his visit.