At least 2,439 complaints about dubious sales schemes related to quake, tsunami and nuclear damage have been reported to the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan since the triple disasters occurred in March.
According to a Kyodo News survey released Saturday, around ¥970 million has already been paid out for suspicious goods and services, including exorbitant house repairs, flawed radiation gauges and water filters touted to remove radioactivity.
By prefecture, 1,051 cases were reported in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima and Ibaraki, which were all hit hard by the disasters, with the remaining 1,388 coming from other prefectures.
Kyodo arrived at the figure of 2,439 by identifying potentially fraudulent cases from the approximately 30,000 disaster-related public calls stored in the consumer affairs center's database between March 11 and Dec. 10.
The most common complaints focused on roofing work, with 1,645 cases worth about ¥170 million. Sales of inadequate radiation gauges came in second with around ¥14 million paid out.
The center also received 81 calls about water filters that claim to remove radioactive materials.