Police in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, said Monday they have arrested an unemployed 45-year-old woman on suspicion of fraud after she made false complaints to many businesses in order to get compensation from them.
According to police, Tomoko Onotani called a pastry shop in Toyonaka City, Osaka Prefecture, in May and told them there was hair in a cake she bought from the store, Sankei Shimbun reported. An employee of the store went to a parking lot near her residence and gave her a cake as "compensation."
Police said Onotani used the same trick to defraud a bakery in Kobe City of 1,085 yen in June.
After her arrest, police said a check of Onotani's phone records showed that she made 7,000 calls to 1,200 cake shops in 30 prefectures. She also made about 4,650 phone calls to 104 (a phone number for directory assistance in Japan).
© Japan Today
30 Comments
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Hawkeye
Wow, she must be big as a house after swindling so many cake shops out of a cake or two each.
glasshouse
She must have been a real sweet tooth.
TheGodfather
There must be some really lonely people in Japan... :-(
shonanbb
You would think she got tired of cake by now.
clueless
You can't have your cake and eat it.
Geoff Gillespie
Well apparently you can. At least until they catch you...
FightingViking
@clueless
I wasn't quick enough ! You took the words out of my mouth ! But I wasn't eating any cake...)
papigiulio
Japanese businesses are too naive. After asking to show her the proof, she told them she threw it away and they still gave her a cake.
NathalieB
Whoa. Somebody needs a job badly...
Disillusioned
This goes near the top of my list of strange hobbies. This woman is obviously a few cakes short of birthday party and needs some serious counselling.
therougou
Its not clear how many shops gave her cake, and how many gave her cash. She could have been after money but some shops gave her cake instead.
Wc626
This is true, always giving their patrons the benefit of the doubt. Japanese are some of the most demanding consumers too.
I once ordered a few pizzas. It was a holiday, they were overwhelmed with pizza deliveries. I didn't make a fuss a when it arrived 50min. later than I was advised when placing the order over the phone. My japanese guest suggested that I "make a complaint" in order to receive a free pizza in the future. But why bother?
DaDude
Though only slightly similar, every shop/restaurant staff should check out the movie "Compliance" to know that nutty people like this exist and learn how to handle phone scams.
paiteow
Clearly the patriarchy is responsible for forcing this woman out of the male dominated workforce into a life of fraud..........sorry I thought I was in the United States there for a minute.
Commodore Shmidlap (Retired)
How did she ever find time to eat the cakes with all that telephoning? Or did she give them away to friends and family?
Pidestroika
As the the Church of England Inquisition would say: "Cake or death?"
Scrote
Don't these shops ever ask for receipts?
Mirai Hayashi
I would think that she spent more on her phone bill than the amount that she swindled...obviously a cry for attention rather than a need for money
smithinjapan
Community service at a cake shop... where she is not allowed any of the goods they sell.
David Varnes
Let them eat cake!
MikeRowave
The more important question is why was she arrested in the first place? The article doesn't say anything about that, it seems cops can arrest you at willy-nilly here.
nath
Well, I`ve gotta say that really takes the cake...
gaijin6000
That scam really sounded like a cake walk...until she got caught!
wtfjapan
excessive tolerance strikes again. 7000 F claims! seriously imagine the money wasted in lost productivity from this looney. now times this by 10,000 and you can understand the massive amount of public money wasted that could easily been avoided.
Brian Wheway
I have heard of "death by chocolate", but death by cake? well serves here right, now she will be eating runny curry in the local prison hahahah!
Goodlucktoyou
How about telling the izakawa that there is a hair in my glass? Free drinks all night...
Mohamed Bouya
She is lonely. Damn it.
5SpeedRacer5
There is so much in this story when one reads between the lines.
Some old biddy finds a hair in a piece of cake and gets a whole cake delivered from the shop as an apology.
Think about that for a second. Then think about similar things happening over a thousand times. Does it strike anyone that this is a huge testimony to the quality of Japanese goods and services? Integrity? Good will? I mean, wow, if these cake shops were cranking out crummy product, they would never be able to keep up with claims like this. The fact that the cake shops were devastated by the claims tells me that they make one mistake in a blue moon, and that somebody might get fired for a "hair in the cake" scale of failure. This woman's fraud is a terrible thing because it takes resources away from honest, hardworking people who did their jobs perfectly. And it gives those resources to a lying layabout.
I have watched standards in other countries plummet over the years. Japan has been holding the line courageously.
tallpinedog
I wonder if it was just for cake's sake or if Ms Onotani enjoyed being a bully.