How Dating Sites Exploit Fear of Being Caught to Drive Massive Spending — Part 2

This is the second part of nonfiction writer Mizuho Takagi’s series “The Birth of the Sex Industry: Dating Sites,” which explores the roots of various aspects of Japan’s adult entertainment world. In 1999, the mobile dating site “Star Beach” (commonly known as “Stabi”) launched and achieved massive success. Then, in 2002, “Apire” (formerly “Koi Mail”) was founded as a meetable site that did not use fake female users (known as sakura), but soon found itself facing a certain dilemma.

[Part 1] It all began with the absolutely can’t meet type of dating sites.

 

The Tactics Used to Drain Users’ Points

At the time, Apire—managed by Takashi Uchida (alias, 49)—faced a major problem: once users actually met someone, they would delete their accounts. Without repeat customers, there could be no steady profits. To keep the money flowing, this issue had to be solved.

“Women could still register as members, and it wasn’t completely impossible to meet, but we built a system where sakura(fake users) would always appear at the top of search results, making real female users practically invisible. On top of that, we set restrictions so that even if a man tried to contact a genuine female member, his messages wouldn’t reach her,” Uchida explains.

Once the can’t-meet system was in place, all that remained was to put it into action. The sakura weren’t real women but men pretending to be women (nekama). Fake photos were gathered by hiring scouts from cabaret clubs and sex-industry circles to take photos of random women on the street, which were then bought for about 1,000 yen each. Uchida and a small team of just twelve people ran the entire operation.

“We’d collect email addresses, compile them into lists, and send mass emails saying something like, ‘Looking for someone I can definitely meet.’ The volume? Around a million emails a month,” says Uchida.

—So basically, you started with spam emails?

“Yes. It’s funny now, but at the time, the spam traffic was apparently putting a huge load on the carriers’ servers. A sales rep from NTT Docomo once asked me, ‘Could you at least avoid sending them during the evening when regular users are most active?’”

—So they didn’t tell you to stop?

“Pretty much—they tolerated it. Even spam generated packet fees, after all. I think Docomo made a lot of money from the data traffic produced by all those can’t-meet sites.”

—How did you collect those email lists?

“There was this handy software called Uchide no Kozuchi (‘Lucky Mallet’). Install it on your computer, and it automatically gathers only active email addresses.”

—What about personal info? It seems hard for male operators to convincingly pose as women with just random photos.

“We made several layers of prewritten response templates, each categorized by expected user questions. It worked fine. By the time someone replies to a mass message, they’re already interested, and there’s this psychological thing where they don’t want to risk being disliked by doubting the person.”

—And how did you get users to keep spending their points?

“We’d say something like, ‘I want to meet you soon, but I’m not that kind of girl. I’d like to get to know you better first—it’s scary otherwise.’ That excuse worked perfectly to prolong the back-and-forth. Most guys just went along with it.”

The Key Was Preventing Direct Calls and Appointments

This entire operation could be divided into three main stages:

• A mass mailing team, responsible for sending out spam messages.

• An attack team, which handled one-on-one replies to those who responded.

• A closing team, tasked with keeping users engaged and draining their points.

These steps were repeated in cycles. With over 20,000 registered members, the profits must have been enormous.

“The highest monthly revenue we ever hit was about 360 million yen. Later on, we switched to running a site that specialized in married women, and that really worked well. The key to draining points was figuring out how to prevent users from ever getting to the stage of direct phone calls or setting appointments. Once we started using excuses like, ‘I can’t talk on the phone—my husband might find out,’ the billing went up even more,” Uchida recalls.

Apire’s success soon became well known among operators in the industry. Uchida looks back on the state of dating sites in the early 2000s:

“A lot of can’t-meet sites were born. But around the same time, can-meet sites like ASOBO, HappyMail, PCMAX, and WakuwakuMail also appeared,” he says.

It’s worth touching on these paid “can-meet” sites that emerged during that era.

Since their launch, ASOBO and HappyMail have stayed true to being genuine meeting platforms, and according to Uchida, they grew by actually allowing users to meet. Their early success was reportedly due to a clever tactic: “They sent sakura into Stabe (St@rBeach) to lure users over to their own sites,” says Uchida.

Those sites continued to expand steadily, with PCMAX alone reportedly pulling in a monthly net profit of 200 million yen. The other can-meet sites likely made similar profits.

In any case, once it became known that users could actually meet people, a flood of users—especially those seeking compensated dating—rushed in.

The Beginning of the End

Of course, the police didn’t stay silent. One law enforcement official recalls:

“We were well aware that many minors were engaging in prostitution through these sites. But what we considered an even bigger problem were the scam sites that were flooding the Consumer Affairs Agency with complaints.”

In other words, the first targets of police scrutiny were the can’t-meet sites. Uchida explains:

“It’s true that regulations were tightened, and we started getting warnings for what we used to call site theatrics—basically the nekama (men pretending to be women) operations. But in reality, most of the focus was on keeping minors off the platforms, so I don’t remember it having much of an impact.”

In 2003, the Act on Regulation of Soliciting Children Using Dating Sites—commonly known as the Dating Site Regulation Law—was enacted. However, because access to site management systems was strictly controlled, it was nearly impossible for police to grasp what was really happening without an internal leak or concrete evidence.

Still, legal regulation tends to tighten step by step. Uchida admits that even then, he felt it wouldn’t last much longer.

Then came a new phase: companies began selling the fraud-site systems themselves.

Rather than making money from running the sites directly, these operators shifted to profiting by selling the site infrastructure to others. The market had become saturated, and profits began to decline. The reason was clear—cannibalization caused by the explosive growth in the number of sites. By around 2008, according to police sources, there were roughly 4,000 such sites in operation.

Everyone in the business began to feel it—this might be the beginning of the end.

The Disappearance of the 4,000 Can’t-Meet Sites

In February 2008, everything changed dramatically. The Dating Site Regulation Law was amended, bringing far stricter controls. The main points were: All operators had to register with the Public Safety Commission. All users—both men and women—had to verify their age using official ID. The goal was obvious: to eliminate underage users and fraudulent sites.

At first, few believed the new rules would be effective. Similar regulations had been imposed on telephone dating clubs(telekura) years earlier, where users simply pressed a button to confirm they were over 18—nothing really changed. The 2003 law had also failed to make much of an impact.

But this time, the authorities were serious. Both male and female users were now required to submit ID documents—driver’s licenses, health insurance cards, anything showing their birthdate. Those who refused were effectively barred from using the sites. Operators who failed to comply faced up to six months in jail or a fine of up to one million yen. The intent was crystal clear.

The industry scrambled to respond. Major can-meet sites like ASOBO and Happy Mail introduced proper age verification systems. Other legitimate dating sites followed suit. Some platforms only required users to send a photo of their ID with the name and address hidden, but even that was cumbersome—and few believed women would go through the trouble. If female users disappeared, the very essence of dating sites would be lost.

Soon after the law took effect, StarBeach (“Stabi”) shut down its service altogether. The closure wasn’t only because of the new law. The site’s reputation had already been destroyed by fake users (“sakura”) sent in from competing can-meet sites, and many users had migrated to Mixi, a free social network. Even the paying users—those willing to spend money to meet women—were leaving.

Then came the mass extinction. The roughly 4,000 can’t-meet sites vanished one after another. Because most were essentially fraud operations, registering with the police would have exposed their inner workings. But failure to register made them automatic targets for prosecution—so they simply shut down.

Thus, the fraud sites were wiped out.

What about the legitimate can-meet sites? Uchida explains:

“The ones that filed their registrations survived. The only real difference was that minors could no longer use them.”

Around the same time, smartphones began to replace feature phones, and a new, more advanced form of platform appeared: apps. In the age of apps, dating sites evolved into sleeker, user-friendly matching apps.

This new tool spread rapidly across the world. In Japan, the term “konkatsu” (marriage hunting) emerged, changing the public perception of dating apps and fueling a surge in users. On the surface, it seemed like the industry had finally become clean.

However—

If the old dating sites represented the history of online scams, the new generation brought real-world scams. In recent years, there’s been a wave of “bottakuri” (rip-off) cases—men lured through matching apps by couples or groups, then taken to bars or restaurants and forced to pay huge bills. There have also been “tsutsumotase” (honey trap)scams, where fake romantic partners demand compensation after fabricating conflicts.

Ironically, “enjo kōsai” (compensated dating) has simply rebranded itself as “papakatsu” (sugar-daddy dating)—continuing through back channels. And so, the scams once confined to cyberspace have spilled out into the real world—a sad and bitter conclusion.

(Honorifics omitted in the text)