Japanese Scams

A bank tried to convince a woman of 66 that she was going to be the subject of a scam but she didn't listen and sent 1,400,000 yen (14,651 USD) to a person who pretended to be her son.

The woman said that she got a call from her son who said that he was in trouble for trying to steal money.

The bank thought it was suspicious after the woman asked for the money to be sent to a different prefecture even though her real son lives in Tokyo...

This type of fraud is called "Ore Ore Sagi" or "Its Me scams".

A: Hello?

B: It’s me!

A: Takeshi? Is that you? What’s wrong with your voice?

B: I’ve got a cold. Listen, I need a really big favour…

“Ore Ore” sagi (”It’s me!” scams) are a well known confidence trick in Japan.

A fraudster calls a house. If the voice on the end of the phone sounds like it belongs to someone elderly or otherwise exploitable, he says “Ore! Ore!” (”It’s me!”). If he’s lucky, the victim will mistake him for a son/nephew/grandson, and say “Is that Hideo” (or similar), and his trap is set.

In most cases, the voice will be different from the one they’re expecting. If the victim seems uncertain, “Hideo” can invent a cold or flu to explain the change in his voice.

Next, the scamster adds the bait. “Hideo” has gotten himself into terrible trouble (like accidentally shunting someone’s Porsche, or being threatened by the yakuza), and owes a lot of money. The aim of this drama is to panick the bewildered victim into transferring money immediately to an account owned by him, after which, they never hear from him again, and the truth emerges.
At their peak, these kind of scams fooled thousands of gullible unfortunates every year, earning billions of yen. Media coverage has increased public caution, but also given increasing numbers of dishonest types the inspiration to try it out. There’s also more innovation - a complex ore ore scam might involve a number of fraudsters acting different roles and sharing the profits.

News from Nikkan Sports and photo of a girl who could one day be the subject to a scam taken from E Hentai - VNSFW but the CGs in this series are quite cute - from the recently released eroge Kiss yori sakini Koi.

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