The news yesterday mentioned that phishing and the like sent to hacked email addresses is on a rapid uprise, and cites breaking through the Japanese language barrier from overseas as one reason. These phishing emails are being attributed, probably correctly, to the huge number of email addresses that have been hacked from the systems of Japanese entities over the past two weeks. It could be that the email addresses of half the Japanese population have been hacked, along with associated personal information.
Many people here have for a long time felt secure from those baddies overseas, but things seem to have changed.
On a related note, here on Facebook and probably other platforms, it used to be common to see scam posts written in Japanese but with an occasional telltale simplified Chinese character. I don’t see them anymore.
Just the other day I received a phone call from the Vatican—I didn’t pick it up, of course—and it could have involved my non-payment of my non-existent docomo bill.
And I get a Japanese language email about once a week from “me,” asking the person they think will be an employee receiving the email at my inquiry alias email address to start a LINE group and not invite any other employees because “I” will soon be sending important instructions related to work. I suspect that it would be an instruction to deposit a large amount of money or crypto somewhere.
From things I’ve heard, many of the people involved in these scams (including the ones brought to Myanmar or wherever) are enlisted by thugs from whom they’ve borrowed heavily. The same can be said of the bank accounts that are used to receive such money. When you make a bank account, they ask you to declare that the account is not being made on behalf of someone else and specifically an “antisocial force,” but if you’ve borrowed heavily to gamble, for example, another gamble could just be a natural progression.
Anyway, the age of a safe Japan appears to be over, but it’s at least still relatively safe to walk on the street here.