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Chiba prefectural police have revealed that an 80-year-old woman living in Kashiwa City was scammed out of 55 million yen in four separate incidents.
According to police, the woman received several phone calls between August 9 and October 20 from a man either claiming to be an employee for the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan or a non-profit organization, Sankei Shimbun reported. She was informed that her personal information had likely been leaked, allowing someone to register on the site under her name.
The victim was also told that a problem arose when someone used her member information to transfer money.
Under the pretext of guaranteeing she wouldn’t be arrested, the woman handed a total of 55 million yen to a man pretending to be a Financial Services Agency employee on four separate occasions. The payments were made either at the woman’s home or on the street in front of her residence.
The incident came to light when the woman grew suspicious that the money was not refunded at the proposed deadline. When she dialed a specific phone number the man gave, the number wouldn’t connect with a caller. She finally filed a police report on November 6 with Kashiwa Police Station.
© Japan Today
8 Comments
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sakurasuki
55 millions, that's lot of saving compared to average senior people in Japan.
Even many retiree that just retired just don't have that amount of money.
602miko
Oh God! .... Just like that goodbye 55M. Scammer hope to meet your karma someday.
stormcrow
These con artists are very clever at what they do. If you have any senior citizens to care for, watch them carefully. One Japanese woman told me about how her father was swindled by an investment scheme and he lost everything he owned. It all happened while she was at work and they took him and them for everything. Also, watch out with the iphones. They're another easy access point for swindling the elderly, and it doesn't even require face to face meetings or signed contracts. Just push the buttons they want you to push on the iphone and they charge you. It happened recently to an old woman I know who was tricked by a fortune teller.
Rodney
He/she will get caught, maybe in four years with J-cops usual speed. If he did just once they might of got away with it. But with four times, CCTV has a 400% chance to catch them. Greed.
u_s__reamer
The punishment for scammers should be draconian (a minimum of 10 years and more depending on the amount stolen) since scams in today's capitalist system have reached a pandemic scale with a proliferation of competing "services" from OTAs to shipping companies whose blatant criminal activities should be classed as "white-collar" crime, but governments, banks and credit card companies have zero interest in investigating and punishing these criminals. The consumer is thus abandoned and thrown to the wolves, all in the name of "free trade" and freedom to fleece.
Jonathan Prin
Giving 55 million for no reason mean she was never ever going to use it or make someone inherit it.
The story does imply she even got more.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
At 80, I would for any money sensitive move ask a member of my family or closest friend what to think about it. If not able, bank or spending would be the normal wise move.
William Bjornson
Even when you are certain that nothing could ever convince you that the death penalty is nothing but monstrous, psychopathic, a high hypocrisy, and a punishing of murder by becoming murderers ourselves, and then... a story like this comes along, of pure unalloyed and conscienceless parasitism on the elderly and certainty starts to thin...
kaimycahl
@jonathan Prin Why are you insinuating that the old lady was a full? Do you think its ok that she lost that amount of money and it really doesn't matter because the story indicates that she probably had more? So now she is considered a fool and she didn't need the money because she didn't guard it closely? Have you ever thought that she did accumulate a lot of money at 80 years old no matter how much she had it doesn't make her a fool. The suggestions you made "ask a member of her family or close friend what they think about it". Have it ever came to your mind is that perhaps she did and those are the very same people who are more than likely to rob you or kill you knowing you had that amount of money. Perhaps that's why she was so easily misled, you said using a bank. At 80 years old and my thinking is she could not trust anyone but the bank and it was not said she had her money there but on different occasions she provided them money. From what I think she trusted a bank and being contacted by a so called "employee for the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan or a non-profit organization, being informed that her personal information had likely been leaked, allowing someone to register on the site under her name". Perhaps made it seem official and this is why she may have let her guard down! These guys are clever and I am sure someone knew she had money I don't think she was randomly picked this was planned and it could have been by a clever family member and a friend we read about it all the time,
Giving 55 million for no reason mean she was never ever going to use it or make someone inherit it.
The story does imply she even got more.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
At 80, I would for any money sensitive move ask a member of my family or closest friend what to think about it. If not able, bank or spending would be the normal wise move.