Osaka man arrested for taking online job recruitment test for money

Surrogate test taker ?

Give the man a higher paying job, he's clearly more intelligent than the Candidates he's representing.

Give this man a raise ¥¥¥¥

Can't blame him to find side jobs after all price is increased lately.

He is believed to have taken tests for about 20 firms at the request of the female student and received roughly 100,000 yen in payments from her.

It's only 5000 yen/firms compared to future employment. Even that money can be immediately cover with one or two months salaries.

receiving requests from around 300 people via social media, the police said. He has allegedly told investigators that he took around

Too bad for those 300 fresh grads they might be reprimanded by their company, losing their job probably with current situation of labor shortage they might still keep the job.

The police also referred the student's case to prosecutors Tuesday over the unauthorized creation and sharing of confidential digital information.

If the persons for who he took the tests authorized him to use their information, it is not unauthorized creation. There isn’t and cannot be any law that you cannot share your login/personal information with anyone you like. For money or for no money.

How lax. It's almost inviting fraud. But this shows something about the disparity of power. He gets arrested for swindling companies but few companies gets punished for swindling employees or anyone else. And there is another convenient and suitably vague catch-all law in addition: "unauthorized creation and sharing of confidential digital information." Police and prosecutors love these for the little people.

4,000 times for 4 million?!?! A product of Japan's deflationary economy or what.

Oops, modern days class room cheating, LOL

This is how we reward intelligence these days. and we keep forgetting that the brightest of us never even finished High school or college.

Smart man.

Give the man a higher paying job, he's clearly more intelligent than the Candidates he's representing.

If he believed he could take tests for hundreds of people and it would be kept secret forever he is not exactly bright himself either.

Moonraker nails it, world wide, the little guy with small time scamming gets hit with disproportionately severe penalties while the whale skates by. I think we saw a another article the other day with 10 min videos representing this. However, Kamisama forbid that Densu, or "insert construction firm here", are proportionally penalized.

And what is the crime that warrants an arrest here? I thought bowing 90 degrees in front of cameras was the appropriate punishment for fraud in Japan. This debacle is totally on the corporations that continue using the silly, pointless tests they cannot even verify the identities of the candidates for recruitment.

Tanaka is also suspected of having taken exams for roughly 1,000 different companies since January after receiving requests from around 300 people via social media, the police said. He has allegedly told investigators that he took around "4,000 tests since about four years ago."

Honestly, if one was gift enough to have a knack for passing exams, I'd make a living out of it.

MoonrakerToday  07:13 am JST

How lax. It's almost inviting fraud. But this shows something about the disparity of power. He gets arrested for swindling companies but few companies gets punished for swindling employees or anyone else. And there is another convenient and suitably vague catch-all law in addition: "unauthorized creation and sharing of confidential digital information." Police and prosecutors love these for the little people.

This! I was expecting someone would say that. If the common man does it, it's bad but if big companies are behind it, it's just a business practice. I think it should be clearer than day that the government has favourites.

Yoshihiro, reminds me of the software coder that hired a couple of non-US coders to do his job while he watched cat videos. The performance was not the problem, code was fine, but the managers are the ones to "offshore", not the employee (yes, lots of nuance here but..) Literally, heads I win, tails you lose.

I had to give dozens of tests for English proficiency online for an English school. The students were supposed to have their cameras on but some started taking them with the cameras off.

When I mentioned this to the school admin, they were more worried about losing the account so told me to let them take the tests with the cameras off.

There was so much obvious cheating at times I had to stop the tests. One guy was asking his girlfriend off to the side what the answers were to my questions and I could easily hear them. Another guy, whom I knew his voice and English level well well, obviously had another guy sitting in for him.

Money over integrity.

As others have said, this guy is super intelligent and should not be condemned. He should be rewarded with an honorary Doctorate and a tenured Professorship in the discipline he specializes in a a top national university.

His fee was very reasonable. I wish he was around 30 years ago when I was taking tests.

Photo looks like a drug bust with the bags of narcotics laid out haha.

Photo looks like a drug bust with the bags of narcotics laid out haha.

Yup, nice to see those TOEIC and TOEFL books off the streets!

Surrogate test taker ?

I like this new job title :)

No doubt it's illegal and criminal. But what he offered could be transformed as a valid educational/assisting service.

Sorry, but what’s the crime?

Sorry, but what’s the crime?

I can't believe this is considered a crime. It's more akin to lying on one's resume, which should result only in personal consequences for the job applicant, such as not being hired or being fired if already hired. There shouldn't be criminal penalties for the test taker.

Nobuto Tanaka, 28, an employee of Kansai Electric Power Co...

He has allegedly told investigators that he took around "4,000 tests since about four years ago."

Roughly 1000 tests per year. That's around 3 tests per day, every day. How did he manage to do his actual job at Kansai Denki?

There is no obvious legal crime that he committed. It is an ethical issue. This is an attempt by the police to simply shame the individual in public. It is no different than the media stunts where the police informed the news in advance ,so they can stage a police parade to some corporate office to confiscate documents.

They are going to force this guy to cop to a lesser crime by the usual hostage imprisonment (a la Ghosn treatment) until he has made a deep enough bow for the prosecutors liking.

The kid who stole the Covid relief money from Ward office was released immediately. This guy will be treated worse because he just tore one of the fabrics of Japanese society. These are the sometimes unnecessary company entrance tests.

just shows how useless the tests were if they got the job”WITHOUT TAKING THE TEST” and the company is probably happy with the staff member anyway.All those companies probably look stupid now!

What is the actual charge the police have made? We can see the guy “has been arrested on suspicion of taking an online job recruitment test for another person in exchange for payment” but as some have mentioned in other comments, what’s the crime itself?

This is the internet age. People cut and paste everyday. He is a human equivalent. And he makes people happy.

What is the crime ? is singing the people !

Crime of stupidity by HR managers to not perform corréctly their jobs by hiring unknown persons.

His only mistake (apart from getting caught of course) would seem to be not adding several zeros onto his fee. This guy clearly has skills.

The people who hired him should be prosecuted too.

The guy did not charge very much. I'm sure he could have charged way more. Lol.

@Bungle

Fraud. Next question.

He did not commit fraud that could be considered criminal.

Criminal fraud is the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right.

Try again!

Hopefully, he paid his taxes!

If he is smart then he will turn this publicity into an opportunity to start a tutoring service for high school senmon gakko or university students looking for work!

A smart guy did a "STUPID THING" thinking he would never get caught. This is what greed does. Once he exposed himself on the internet that was the day he should have started looking over his shoulder. The moral of this story is CRIME DOES NOT PAY!

He's a smart guy mind works and easy mobey.

Clearly English tests. Shows how important these companies really value the English skills their employees have.

He is believed to have taken tests for about 20 firms at the request of the female student and received roughly 100,000 yen in payments from her.

So, wait. She couldn’t get a job on her own, but she was able to pay the guy ¥100,000?

why doesn’t she keep doing what she did to get that ¥100,000 yen and forget the online application all together?

Tanaka is also suspected of having taken exams for roughly 1,000 different companies since January after receiving requests from around 300 people via social media, the police said. He has allegedly told investigators that he took around "4,000 tests since about four years ago."

sounds like the companies should only be blaming themselves for having online exams for applicants.

Why have an exam at all? They’re worthless, obviously, since the cheaters got in.

how about, idk. Checking their backgrounds, references and experiences instead? Maybe have a live zoom interview instead? Have them intern for about a month or so, see if they can actually do the job?

I don’t see how a paper test will prove anything. Other than having applicants pay someone else to take it.

"Company punishes worker for being smart enough to pass several online exams"

Catch me if you can...

@Wil

Deceit: pretending to be someone else on line.

Deprive another of a legal right: when taking a test like this there is always a disclaimer at the beginning, making it clear what the person taking the test is supposed to do. It always states that having someone else assist or take the test is against the agreement. By taking this test, both this gentlemen and his clients have engaged in breach of contract.

Lol! Where in that contract does it say that it is a criminal offense?

Breaking a contract is not equivalent to committing an arrest able crime. That is a civil matter not a criminal matter.

And, you have not proven otherwise!

@Wil/Bungie

Try again!

Having been in the situation of forced to take an online test for a Job application, I can understand how, persons offering experience of such tests, can benefit for standing in, on behalf of Clients.

Online tests only show part of the picture regarding a candidate. If Companies continue to demand such tests, then there's an opportunity for online test cheat sites to proliferate.

The old fashioned way of employing a Candidate, by simply sitting down with them, and determining if you feel comfortable with them is perhaps a good solution. I've seen Candidates in the past who are all "talk" but simply want to get others to do the work without putting in any effort themselves. I've also seen Candidates who don't fully know the subject, admit it, but who are quick learners and dedicated to adapting... Who would you rather have on your team ?