Every morning when I read 下野新聞（Shimotsuke Shinbun), the local newspaper, I see at least one story about the latest chump in the long line of victims of the money transfer scam.
A typical victim is someone who is over the age of 50 with grown (and out of the house) children. The perpetrators use different tricks, but the most common one goes like this...
You receive a call from your son (in some cases, your nephew or grandson) informing you that he has switched cell phones and now he has a new number AND he is in trouble.
He tells you that he has made some big mistake at work and has to pay them for it, or he would get fired, OR he has embezzled money from his company, and he has to pay them back or he would face criminal charges. Can you wire cash into his account? The amount could be anywhere from 500,000 Yen up to 2,000,000 Yen. He gives you his bank account number and begs you to do it NOW.
You sense the desperation in his voice that you have never heard before.... this must be serious. You drop whatever you are doing and head to the bank to make the transfer. Hold on, baby!! Mommy's coming!!
After the transfer has been done, you call his number to tell him everything will be OK, but your call wouldn't go through. Strange.....
You call his old number, and he answers. "Mom?? What are you TALKING about!? You did WHAT!?"
I was not exaggerating when I read about a new victim EVERY DAY. EVERY SINGLE day! How stupid can these people be? Don't these people read the papers / watch the news? An ample bright red light should flash in your head when "your son" calls you with a horrible cold telling you that his phone number has been changed! Don't they really recognize their own sons' voices? Maybe it is that the panic in the son's voice puts the parent in a panic and makes them do something that they would never do in their right mind.
I do feel bad when the victim is some 80-year-old grandma who empties her life savings to help out her grandson, who tells her that he was too ashamed to call his parents and Grandma was the only one he could call.
I was thinking about "testing" my parents by calling them up and telling them that my phone number had changed and I had stolen some money from work and needed to pay them back 1,353,000 or I'd go to jail... but since I live with them, I don't think it would work.
Those of you who have elderly parents, try it to see what they would do. They might kill you afterwards, but you would at least get the answer to that question that has been burning inside you since junior high, Do They Really Love Me?
A typical victim is someone who is over the age of 50 with grown (and out of the house) children. The perpetrators use different tricks, but the most common one goes like this...
You receive a call from your son (in some cases, your nephew or grandson) informing you that he has switched cell phones and now he has a new number AND he is in trouble.
He tells you that he has made some big mistake at work and has to pay them for it, or he would get fired, OR he has embezzled money from his company, and he has to pay them back or he would face criminal charges. Can you wire cash into his account? The amount could be anywhere from 500,000 Yen up to 2,000,000 Yen. He gives you his bank account number and begs you to do it NOW.
You sense the desperation in his voice that you have never heard before.... this must be serious. You drop whatever you are doing and head to the bank to make the transfer. Hold on, baby!! Mommy's coming!!
After the transfer has been done, you call his number to tell him everything will be OK, but your call wouldn't go through. Strange.....
You call his old number, and he answers. "Mom?? What are you TALKING about!? You did WHAT!?"
I was not exaggerating when I read about a new victim EVERY DAY. EVERY SINGLE day! How stupid can these people be? Don't these people read the papers / watch the news? An ample bright red light should flash in your head when "your son" calls you with a horrible cold telling you that his phone number has been changed! Don't they really recognize their own sons' voices? Maybe it is that the panic in the son's voice puts the parent in a panic and makes them do something that they would never do in their right mind.
I do feel bad when the victim is some 80-year-old grandma who empties her life savings to help out her grandson, who tells her that he was too ashamed to call his parents and Grandma was the only one he could call.
I was thinking about "testing" my parents by calling them up and telling them that my phone number had changed and I had stolen some money from work and needed to pay them back 1,353,000 or I'd go to jail... but since I live with them, I don't think it would work.
Those of you who have elderly parents, try it to see what they would do. They might kill you afterwards, but you would at least get the answer to that question that has been burning inside you since junior high, Do They Really Love Me?
