I’ve written before about how one of the more pleasant aspects of living in Japan is that people tend to be honest and upstanding, and chances are if you lose your wallet or camera it will be turned in at the local “police box,” as the tiny two-man police stations that dot Japanese cities are called. That’s not to say there’s no crime in Japan: as with all countries, there are thefts, assaults and the occasional murder, but in general the chances that crime will affect a given person are low. Sadly, one type of crime is still too common, the bank transfer frauds known as Ore Ore Sagi or “It’s me, it’s me! Scams.” Usually they take the form of an elderly Japanese person receiving a call from a “grandson” with a cold (hence the change in his voice) who says, “It’s me, it’s me! Don’t you know your own grandson?” The swindler then proceeds to tell some lie about how he’s gotten in an accident or made a costly error at work and needs $5000 transferred to his bank account right away to fix things. The problem is bad enough that police are often posted by bank ATMs to ask patrons if they’ve received any suspicious calls, and the ATMs themselves display warnings when transferring money. These types of crimes are reportedly less common in the Osaka area because criminals can’t mimic the Osaka-ben dialect as easily.
Bank transfer scams are still a problem in Japan.
