A woman in her 80s, who lives in Nagoya, was conned out of 10 million yen after she received a phone call from someone pretending to be her grandson who said he desperately needed money to pay tax on the return from an investment scheme.
According to police, the woman received the call at around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, TBS reported. The caller told the woman about the investment and his tax problem and said a lawyer would visit her that afternoon to pick up the money.
Later that day, a man pretending to be from a law office showed up and the woman gave him 10 million yen.
On Thursday, the woman called her grandson to see if everything was alright and realized she had been conned.
© Japan Today
18 Comments
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sakurasuki
Still have 10 millions in her 80s, how much money she had during her 60s ?
dagon
All those posters and commercials and campaigns the government funds didn't warn her?
Hiro
At this point i am not even sure why they are still falling for the world most stupidest scam.
MarkX
I am going to put this out again, but I feel in many of these cases it is someone who knows this person, or has dealings with them. Otherwise, it would be a risk to cold call someone using this scam only for them not to have the money and panic and call the police. I'd be looking into any caregivers, insurance people, or even family members.
kibousha
It's mind boggling to imagine that the bubble in the 1980s has left a lot of seniors with easily 10 to 20 millions in cash even today.
momoclo
Like taking candy from a baby.
Rodney
It’s time for grandmothers to start coldcalling random salarymen in the big cities and ask for money for an urgent operation
Yohan
The person who did this must know this old woman and her grandson very well, to impersonate another person, who is a relative of the victim even by phone is not so easy - also it seems he knew that she had a lot of money. This crime was not done by an outsider.
falseflagsteve
People who commit crimes on vulnerable should face harsh punishments. This includes the type who prey on vulnerable women and con them out of their money. You’d be surprised how plausible these people can be to the naive or sometimes desperate victim.
Theee types make a career out of it as it’s easy money with low risk and as violence is not involved the punishments are not so severe.
BlackFlagCitizen
Still amazed by how this con continues to work. My parents are in their 80s, but there is no way anyone could pass themselves off as me on the phone
Jonathan Prin
Japanese being honest are also very naive in some way.
Moreover, family ties are weak in the sense that some may have lived together for long time but never shared any intimate life and no little from each other.
In addition, old people loathe banks stubbornly and live lonely.
It results in those scams being possible, if not common.
Anyway, a fool and his money are sooner or later parted.
tora
So she had 10 million yen lying around her house. No stopping that one then eh.
But for others that are tricked to ransfer money to an account those can be traced and also if withdrawing from ATMS there are cameras etc. No excuse for authorities not to be clamping down on these kinds of transactions if found to be fraudulent. But seems in Japan this is not the case. Why?
kaimycahl
first call the grandson then call the police to arrest the LIAR!
Mark
Q? #1 How did they know she has that much cash at home?
Q? #2 Could it be that the grandson was actually involved?
Q? #3 could it be Someone she trusts or knows that conned her, this is NOT an outsider job.
Poor lady, I am hopping that the police will be able to track this scum and pick him up soon before he scams someone else.
Garthgoyle
When you're old your mind and common sense is not the same.
My dad was always a very smart person when it came to money. Later on he made quite a few questionable money decisions, like giving his perfectly good car to a friend in church to get into a new one, selling the house where I lived to his "church brother" without doing the proper paperwork (that backfired). And recently he told me he wants to gift his current house.
Tom San
Hello. It is me.