Consumer centers in the Kansai region have received a surge of complaints from people who have received massive bills for calls to adult telephone services they say they did not make, center officials said Wednesday.
Recipients of the bills were charged 19,700 yen each, centers in Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures said.
The bills, which include a bank account number for transfer payments, state that if recipients fail to pay, a debt collector will visit their homes and additional service charges will be added.
More than 300 incidents have been reported in the Kansai region, including about 170 in Osaka city, 80 in Sakai and other parts of Osaka Prefecture, 70 in Kyoto and 14 in Kobe.
The bills, with Osaka city postmarks, are believed to have been mailed by a single debt collection company, the officials said, adding that recipients were probably chosen from an existing mailing list.
A number of identical billing statements have also been received in the Tokyo metropolitan area, they added.
The consumer centers are cautioning recipients not to pay if they did not make the calls.
A string of similar billing scams began in spring 2001, according to the Kyoto center.