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Tokyo Disneyland is a place of wonder and dreams, of magic and smiles, and of enchanting, adorable parades. Unfortunately, recently it was also a place of heartless scams pulled off by two visitors.
As part of the park’s 35th anniversary celebration, Tokyo Disneyland has been holding a year-long promotion called “Happiest Surprise,” in which employees hand out special pendants to guests and visitors. Each of these pendants also comes with some sort of present, like priority seating for the park’s always popular stage shows, passes to the front of attraction lines, or vouchers for merchandise or food.
Employees hand the pendants out at their own discretion, whenever they spot a visitor whose day they want to make extra special. On Dec 22, one of the recipients was a young man in a wheelchair, accompanied by a woman in a black jacket, and ordinarily this would be a heartwarming tale of Disney’s stellar hospitality and consideration towards guests with mobility issues.
However, Twitter user @milktea_sutella later spotted the pair receiving Happiest Surprises again later that same day, and while the photos she tweeted show they’re the same two visitors, you’ll notice one key difference.
The man and woman have switched places. In the first photo, it’s the man who’s sitting in the wheelchair while the able-legged woman stands/walks, but in the second photo, they’ve reversed roles, as she’s seated in the chair and he’s pushing her around the park.
@milktea_sutella claims the pair received a total of 18 Happiest Surprises throughout the course of the day, and while she doesn’t have photographic evidence of each and every exchange, it seems pretty clear that the two are faking injuries or disabilities as a ploy to get preferential treatment, prompting sharp criticism from online commenters.
“Ugh, how low can you get?”
“I’m gonna keep my language family-friendly and say they’re being ‘jerks.’”
“How terrible. This might make people suspicious of people who legitimately require a wheelchair.”
“It’s sad, because doing this kind of thing changes how people react when they see someone in a wheelchair.”
On the bright side, it’s unlikely that two fraudsters are going to make a dent in Disney’s legendary commitment to customer service and accommodation. Still, it’s sad to see someone taking advantage of genuine kindness for something as petty as getting to cut to the front of the line at a theme park.
Source: Twitter/@milktea_sutella via Gogo Tsushin via Hachima Kiko
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- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2018/12/29/wheelchair-fraudsters-fake-disabilities-at-tokyo-disneyland-get-called-jerks-online/
18 Comments
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DaDude
You think this is an issue while as we speak many people in Japan are parking in handicapped parking spots that aren't handicapped.
half-hearted jumper
Nah. He has a blanket on his legs when seated. You can clearly see the same sweater pants below the orange blanket.
thierrybezier
It's a business, and this is marketing .
Yubaru
And either she or her doctor or hospital she stayed at should have given her the special access pass for parking. It is possible to make the request, and it's sad that there are far too many :"healthy" people that abuse the system.
Shenjingbing
The plausible explanation is that believe it or not, there are lots of people who can/will scam anything if they believe they can get away with it. End of story.
arrestpaul
There are several pictures of these two low-lifes scamming Disneyland employees out of gifts intended for Disneyland guests. It's reported that these two low-lifes repeated this scam 18 times. These two low-lifes should be banned by Disneyland, and they should be publically identified. Let the chips fall where they will.
Concerned Citizen
It is possible that while they are not paraplegics they both have illnesses that are debilitating enough to make walking long hours difficult, so they help each other out by taking turns on a wheel chair. It would be difficult to know unless you know them personally.
Ah_so
I wonder what the original Japanese comment was that this was translated from. I'm struggling to think of the words.
Dom Palmer
Yes, that is slightly possible. But that would mean that their 'illnesses' are so in sync that there would never be a time when both of them would need the SINGLE wheelchair at the same time.
What I notice is that he appears to be wearing the same pants in both pictures. The orange in the first picture could be a blanket or he might have had on a second pair of sweats early in the day that he removed as the temperature increased.
1glenn
Very interesting, but it is still possible that there is a plausible explanation. While the pictures certainly make it look like there is a scam going on, we don't really know since there was not an investigation.
There was a lady over here who was confronted for parking in a handicapped parking spot, when she had no obvious handicap. What the woman who accosted her did not know was that she had recently had heart surgery, and was limited to walking a short distance before she became exhausted. She needed to park close to the entrance of the store in order to complete her business before she was out of breath. So, the point is that things are not always as they appear to be at first glance.
oyatoi
Given the many opportunities they get to practice and hone these skills, Japanese are very good at both scamming and also detecting scammers. Indeed if 詐欺 was an Olympic sport, Japan would rank up there with the best of them. I look forward to the next installment, where somebody they know spills the beans.
Yubaru
By the way, IF it is the same guy....I wonder why he had to change his clothes before the second photo was taken? Notice on the left his pants are orange with black and white stripped leggings or socks, and the one on the right he has a black pair of sweats on with white stripes on the side.
I would love to give them the benefit of the doubt here as no one knows the facts.
gogogo
Name and shame these people, this is truly disgusting.
Michael Machida
I never go to Disney. They do this because they love the place so much? I would rather go to Odaiba and watch the sunset.
Insane Wayne
They still aren't as bad as the "deaf" music composer or those that keep their dead parents in the house to collect welfare. These two were probably frightened by the prospect of having to stand in line for 20 hours. They didn't do anything that Japanese companies don't do every day.
Yubaru
Did anyone actually talk to either of these two and ask about their using a wheelchair?
This is a slanderous article against two people, based upon supposition, and while it may SEEM they are abusing the system for whatever reason, the person who "noticed" the two, sounds pretty much like a stalker!
Goodlucktoyou
They made their day which was the point of the exercise