Japan continues to have problems with a type of fraud known as furikome sagi (translatable as “Transfer the Money Now!” Fraud) in which someone of dubious character calls an elderly person up and pretends to be their grandson, suddenly in need of money to pay back a loan to a yakuza gangster, or tells them that a family member has committed some wrongdoing and will get into trouble unless money is transferred to the following account immediately. One enterprising fraudster even posed as an agent for the National Tax Agency on the phone, carefully walking an elderly victim through the steps needed to transfer her life savings to them under the guise of helping her pay her taxes. The National Police Agency has declared October to be “Elimination of Bank Fraud Month” and has assigned 60,000 officers to stand guard at banks and talk to elderly customers that come in to make sure they’re not being swindled. Japanese “cash corners” (as ATMs are sometimes called) have been updated to display messages warning against the dangers of bank fraud, too. The new measures seem to be helping somewhat, although 16 of the 94 reported bank fraud cases so far this month happened right under the noses of police officers standing guard, including a poor elderly woman who was fooled into transferring $28,000 to an unknown bank account. Japan is a very conservative society when it comes to saving, and seniors on average have $200,000 in cash, twice the $100,000 the average household has saved, which is still a huge amount.
