Japan is planning to limit the amount of money that older people can withdraw or transfer at cashpoints in an effort to halt a spike in fraud cases targeting the elderly.
The National Police Agency has proposed a change in the Act on the Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds to limit the amount that anyone aged 75 or older can withdraw or transfer, to Y300,000 (GBP1,537) a day.
A parallel plan is for the banking industry to automatically suspend the bank card of anyone who is over the age of 65 and who has not used the card to access their account for more than a year, while the local government in the city of Osaka is going one step further in its campaign against the scammers by imposing a ban on old people using an ATM and a phone – to take instructions from the confidence tricksters – at the same time.
Phone and online fraud have been a problem in Japan for several decades, despite a series of campaigns to educate people to the danger.
Some of the most frequent scams involve phone calls to a random number with the perpetrator pretending to be a bank employee, claiming that the person’s account is in overdraft and that a transfer must be completed immediately to avoid a large charge.
Another effective approach is known as the “ore, ore” scam, meaning “hey, hey.” The caller dials a random number and convinces the person on the other end that they are a relative or friend who is in trouble, with one common tactic to say they have been in a minor traffic accident and need to pay the other driver so the police do not get involved.
Romance and investment scams are also prevalent, while a new approach being tried out by fast-talking con men sees targets informed that an arrest warrant has been issued in their name but that it can be dismissed in return for a generous payment.
And while many people are wise to the approaches and hang up, elderly people who are less aware of the scammers’ methods are easier targets. In some cases, the con men have called back several times and convinced the target to make repeated payments before they realise their mistake.
Japanese police announced in February that 20,987 cases were reported to the authorities in 2024, up more than 10 per cent from the previous year. Of the total, 80 per cent of the victims were contacted by phone and given instructions. Investment scams accounted for the majority of reports, followed by romance scams and criminals posing as police officers requesting payment.
The con men managed to talk people out of a record Y126.8 billion (GBP649.4 million) over the course of the year.
On Tuesday, police in Ichihara City arrested Hiroaki Taguchi, 29, on suspicion of attempting to defraud an 80-year-old woman out of Y3 million (GBP15,361) by pretending to be her son on the phone and claiming that he had got his girlfriend pregnant and urgently needed money.
Taguchi, a fireman, was caught after the woman called her son to confirm the information. Taguchi was arrested when he arrived at a pre-arranged location, posing as a lawyer, to collect the money. National broadcaster NHK reported that he told investigators that he had run up debts that he could not pay off.