Insights into Rising Donation Fraud from Former Special Fraud Mastermind

In the past few years, special scams in which people pose as police officers or lawyers to defraud others of their money have been on the rise, with 1,757 cases reported last year. The scams are becoming more sophisticated year by year, and there are still no effective countermeasures to deal with them.

In this issue, we interviewed Mr. Funaim, a former leader of a special fraud group who is now working to eradicate special frauds and black market job offers, about the current situation of special frauds, what methods are prevalent, and countermeasures against such frauds.

The most popular scam last year was the bank card swapping scam. The scammers tell you over the phone that you have made an unauthorized deposit or that your bank account has been used for a crime, and then send someone claiming to be a bank employee directly to your house to obtain your cash card and withdraw money. Of course, this is all a lie, so your bank account has not been suspended, nor has it been used fraudulently.

The scam begins with a phone call telling you that your bank account has been used fraudulently. They ask which bank it is, when you recently withdrew money, and gradually get closer to important information such as the need for a PIN number and a personal seal in order to suspend the use of the account.

The scam is perpetrated by someone claiming to be a bank employee or city official with a high level of public trustworthiness, and then asks for the PIN number in a deceptive manner.

The next most prevalent scam, I believe, was the nursing home move-in scam. The next popular scam was the nursing home scam, in which the scammer would pose as a nursing home management company and trick you into believing that you have enough money to move into a nursing home. For example, the scammer will ask for 30 million yen in order to move into a nursing home, and will then ask about the other party’s assets over the phone as if it were a sales pitch. How much are their financial assets, and how much money do they pay for life insurance? Finally, you offer the maximum amount they can pay and promise to move them into a nursing home. At the end, they will be cheated out of their move-in fee and will not be allowed into the nursing home.”

We ask how much financial assets they have and how much insurance they have, which leads us to how much money they have. In some cases, the scam will make you cancel insurance, sell stocks or other assets when you move in, and transfer the desired amount of money.

They always ask about assets and how much money the person has, but they do not ask directly. Instead, they make the person disclose by asking, “Does your current savings exceed 10 million yen?” or “What stocks have you invested in? This gives them an idea of how much assets the other party has, and they then calculate the amount of money they can take from the other party, before executing the scam.

The last two types of scams are cryptocurrency scams and lottery or campaign winnings scams. Cryptocurrency scammers use email or social networking sites to lure you into investing in a scheme that will surely make money, and then take your money. It is the same tactic as the classic stock investment scam or forex scam, only the target has changed from stocks to cryptocurrencies. Winning scams are often the money handouts you see on social networking sites. In the case of winning scams, you should be aware that you can be involved in a crime without even knowing it.”

In investment scams, you can withdraw a small amount of money the first time you make a profit on your investment, but after two or three times, you will not be able to withdraw your money. The technique is to make it look like they made money the first few times, encourage people to invest, and after the other party transfers a large sum of money, the perpetrator disappears.

In the “winner-takes-all” scam, the victim is contacted and told that he or she has won the prize and that he or she must specify the payee to whom the money should be transferred. The scammer will then contact you and say, “I won 100,000 yen, but I mistakenly sent 1,000,000 yen. Please refund the money.” However, be aware that the account you have given them may be used for money laundering.

The most popular scam this year is probably the donation scam. This is a method of swindling people out of their money by telling them that they are raising money to support the disaster-stricken areas. They take advantage of people’s kindness. This is a scam that occurs every time there is an earthquake or a major accident, so please be careful. In addition, the fraudulent tactics I have described so far are expected to continue in 2012, so please continue to pay attention to them.

The scams that are being perpetrated in the name of supporting the areas affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake that occurred in January of this year are the ones to watch out for, he said. In addition to the donation scams, there will also be many insurance and nursing home scams in the name of the disaster area,” said Hunaim.

Although it is often the elderly who are most likely to fall for scams,” he said, “more and more young people are becoming indirectly involved in such scams through black market jobs and other means. The countermeasure I talk about in my lectures is that if you are an elderly person, the first thing you should do is to ‘tell the story. It does not matter if it is a home helper or a neighbor. In any case, I think you can reduce the probability of being victimized by telling someone about your story around money. Also, a phone with a recording function is very effective. Scammers don’t like to record anything that has to do with them.

The worst thing a scammer can do is talk to someone else. It is important to talk to someone about money matters, even if it is difficult to talk to others, he said. Scammers will try to keep their stories to themselves by saying, “Please don’t tell anyone else about this,” or “This is the only time we can talk about this,” but it is important to ignore them.

If you are of the generation that can use a smart phone, please look up what you hear on your smart phone anyway. It may be difficult because scammers act like gentlemen, but if it has to do with money, don’t trust what you hear from someone you have never met before and look it up first. You need to ‘Google’ the story, and writing about such a story on social networking sites can also be effective. Always ask a third party for their thoughts, rather than thinking alone.”

Many people send in their inquiries to Mr. Hunayim’s X account. Many of them are asking questions such as, “I don’t have any money and I am thinking of joining a scam,” or “I have taken a black market job, but what should I do?

After you have been scammed, you should assume that you will almost never get your money back. If you have 10 minutes to transfer the money, you may be able to apply for a refund by doing a ‘recombination. However, the other party is also taking measures so that you can withdraw your money immediately. The only way to combat fraud is basically to prevent it before it happens.”

In today’s society, where human relationships are becoming more and more tenuous, it may be difficult to talk to those around you, but it may be important to “tell someone about it” in order to avoid losing the precious money you have saved.