Swindlers who called people and pretended to be relatives in need of money had a success rate of roughly two out of three calls last year, bilking their victims out of some 4.3 billion yen, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
The tactic is known as the “Ore ore” (“It’s me”) fraud for the phrase, which suggests familiarity with the mark, the scam artist uses to begin the call. The swindlers were successful in 4,319 of the 6,504 cases, the NPA said. Most of the victims were female, and elderly.
Unable to view this article?
This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software.
Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.
If this does not resolve the issue or you are unable to add the domains to your allowlist, please see this support page.
We humbly apologize for the inconvenience.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.