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The National Police Agency says the bank transfer fraud losses came to a massive 38.328 billion yen in the 10 months from January to October this year. The figure is the highest so far on record, the NPA said.
The figure, which includes "ore-ore" (it's me) fraudulent bank transfers and billing fraud scandals, has already surpassed the total for 2012, which was 36.436 billion yen, Fuji TV reported Tuesday.
The NPA said that this year in Japan's largest cities of Tokyo and Osaka, bank fraud incidents occurring over phones have increased 50% over 2012.
© Japan Today
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Disillusioned
Obviously the government and police campaigns are doing bugger all! Possibly, instead of using childish cartoons they should get serious and promote it and the huge fraud scam it is! I've seen funky little signs in the banks and at ATMs warning about this scam and they are very cute, but clearly, nobody pays any attention to them.
papigiulio
Japan must be a goldmine for scammers and bankcard fraud. More needs to be done to help these older people in the ore-ore scam, surely they cant all be that naive.
Mike Critchley
UFJ's Online banking main page has huge warnings about this, and it's been in the news so much, I'm sure there is not a man, woman, or child alive in Japan who is not aware of the problem. Yet people still get duped. Either the scammers are really good, or there are some seriously stupid people running around.
bjones
I blame the fraud on antiquated processes. On my non-Japanese bank accounts I can add a totally different bank account to my other online bank website and transfer funds from one to the other at no cost. In Japan they still use hanko system and one has to pull out cash from one account and sneaker it over to their other account and hand over the cash. Anyone can transfer funds internationally to and from sites like xoom . com except to Japanese banks. Seems they are still stuck in the 60's. If you are lucky they might have a fax machine!
Pandabelle
@bjones
Are you serious? It could not possibly be any easier to make a furikomi within Japan. It's all done electronically - can do it from online banking, can do it from an ATM. I've been inside my actual bank once in about 5 years.
Knox Harrington
It doesn't take much to understand why this works in a society where people still use bank books. I had one of those when I opened my first bank account back in the 80's but haven't used them since. Until I came to Japan where everybody seems to, if not use them daily, at least use them sometimes.
Japan also loves paper. What's up with the fax use here? Sending papers and confirmations, back and forth like it was 1987, nobody seems to care.
Bear27840
Are the Banks getting kickbacks from these scammers for if they are not they would be red-flagging the transactions of people that are sending money to the same person/company two months a year until finding out what it is about from their customers.