Conbini workers preventing elder fraud

Kazue Umino, a 61-year-old part-time employee at a 7-Eleven in the Shiga Prefecture city of Takashima, noticed that the elderly customer was lingering in the store on Nov. 20. Sensing something was off, she spoke to the man. He said he wanted to buy e-money cards worth 300,000 yen (about $2,300), specifying "the cards with pictures of apples on them." He then began counting banknotes from his bag. Immediately sensing, "This is a fraud," Umino made the man wait, telling him that confirmation was needed to do such a large transaction. She then spoke with a fellow employee, and together they contacted the store manager and Takashima Police Station. According to the police station, the elderly man had received a false mobile phone bill by email the previous day. This is the third time this fiscal year that police have thanked employees of this 7-Eleven branch for stopping fraud. Takashima Police Station chief Satoshi Nakagawa said, "With many elderly residents and poor transportation here in Takashima, we see several cases where fraudsters have their targets send cash via bank transfer or buy e-money cards. We're thankful that she was courageous enough to speak up."

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When Sapkota asked the customer the reason for his purchase, he explained, "A virus hacked into my computer. I was ordered to buy a card worth 50,000 yen." Realizing it was a scam and that the caller could hear their conversation in the store, Sapkota asked the man to end the call. Immediately afterwards, the customer received another call, identified as coming from "Texas, U.S.", on his phone screen. Sapkota then took the phone and said, "I'm his son," and bombarded the caller with questions, such as "What can I do for you? What company is this? What's your name?" The male voice on the other end of the line spoke broken Japanese and apparently hung up in a rush after hearing Sapkota's calm voice. As for the reason that he pretended to be the customer's son, Sapkota explained, "I thought that by saying I'm family, instead of an employee, the scammer would stay on their guard, and it would be less likely for the man to face another incident." The customer thanked Sapkota several times and tried to pay him as a token of thanks, but the Nepali native refused with a smile and said, "This is part of my job. Please come shopping here again."

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