One could almost be forgiven for thinking that con artists are a dime a dozen in Japan. They've been terrorizing elderly folk over the telephone in recent years with their ore-ore sagi ("It's me" scams) and sending threatening emails that warn recipients their computer has been hacked and compromising information will be published online unless that unfortunate individual pays a ransom in the form of a cryptocurrency.
Such activity is a form of phishing in which fraudsters attempt to obtain confidential information such as bank and credit card details by posing as a trustworthy individual or institution when they initiate contact.
According to reports in the Nikkei Shimbun and other news outlets in recent weeks, a variation of this tactic has emerged. It's basically phishing in reverse, where the person being scammed initiates the contact with a fraudster instead of the other way around.