Fraud is fun!

First, I gotta say, I love the Internet. Last night and this morning I got a couple of very strange messages on my cell. They seemed to be from a man in his 40s or 50s, talking very quickly. I really couldn't make out what he was saying... something about 回収 ("collection") and 早い段階 ("at an early stage"). Fortunately my phone showed me his number, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to Google it. If the guy was from a legit business and was calling from a business number, I reasoned, I should get a hit and be able to figure out what it was about.

I certainly got a hit... to this cached page from a disgruntled blogger warning people that someone with the same number had been trying to get him to pay a fictitious bill.

Unfortunately, this is not at all uncommon in Japan. Cases of phone fraud, in which fraudsters call unsuspecting people and demand that they wire money to a savings account are rampant. Fortunately, you'd have to be pretty thick to fall for most of their ploys, which include:

• Pretending to be the victim's son/daughter and in need of money.


• Demanding payment in connection with their cellular phone/Internet usage.


• My favorite, claiming to be the police and telling the victim that their son/husband was caught groping a woman on a train, but that charges will be dropped if the victim wires them cash.

Anyway, I blocked the fraudulent phone number, so I probably won't be hearing from that guy again. And to my Japan buddies, if you get a suspicious call from XXX-XXXX-6671, I suggest you ignore it and block the caller too. Or answer and harangue him in your native language.