The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is warning the public about a surge in suspected scam calls displaying the actual phone numbers of police stations on caller IDs and the caller impersonating a police officer in an attempt to defraud people out of money.
According to the police department, since March 11, the fake callers have used Shinjuku police station's main number (03-3346-0110) at least 500 times, Kyodo News reported. Such bogus calls have been received in 40 prefectures, police said.
The callers are impersonating police officers and attempting to defraud the recipient out of money by claiming their bank accounts have been used for criminal activities and threatening that they will be arrested.
Additionally, the scammers have used the actual phone number for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (03-3581-4321) and other police stations in the city to contact potential victims on their smartphones.
Law enforcement officials currently do not know how the phone numbers are being faked on caller IDs or where the calls are originating from.
A police department official is urging people to not continue talking, but to ask the caller, 'I would like to call you back, so please tell me your name, department and extension number,' and then hang up the phone and contact a police station.
© Japan Today
7 Comments
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gogogo
Seriously? How can the police not understand how phone systems work. Many VoIP systems allow you to set your phone number. A simple google search could tell you this.
These are the people that are suppose to stop the scam, but they don't even understand how it is happening.
tora
Things are becoming more and more broken by the day. Look out for even more restrictions and requirements on using anything and everything on your phone. It was not supposed to be this way.
sakurasuki
Just say hi to increase phone bill later.
iron man
Scammers are more & more clever. Same stuffs happen in hk, (eek sewer). after ?? years all our gov calls/sms now all preceded by #no.. not perfect but smartphone scam % reduced. the solution is out there. But be careful gals and guys, the smarter the phone, the smarter the scammer.
owzer
So where, exactly, do the scammers tell victims to send their money? Maybe that would be easier to trace for the keystone cops than the fake caller ID!
Marc Lowe
If the scammers haven't been caught and are using a Tokyo police phone number, the scammers could very well be members of the police. It is,from what I've seen in based on true story movies, harder to catch corrupt cops than regular criminals. And, while it is nice for the police to offer futile advice, it does kind of make them seem like they don't want to work on catching anyone but just want the problem to go away.
kaimycahl
Things in Japan is becoming more shaken everyday. The scams does not surprise me at all. There are a lot of gypsies running around now day doing a lot of scams. I was looking at the news the other day and saw how the Turks beat a Japanese guy in Saitama. It was a culture clash the Japanese guy tried to correct the Turk but the Turk was not having it, he wanted to do things as he learned in his country. There are 3,000 Turks living in Japan and more immigrants are arriving. Its going to be interesting to see how Japan responds with the influx of new arrivals who are hell bent on doing things the way they are use to doing them in the countries they came from.