Horitsu Note #1404 - Alert about fraud related to our office (2)

 ◾️ Alert regarding a scam that uses our Law Firm's name (2)
In the last issue, I wrote a legal note to alert you to a scam that was taking place that spoke of my law firm. In this issue, I would like to inform you about what has happened since then.

Since I wrote my last article, at least eight people have come forward to let our office know that they have been approached by a similar scam. All of them were contacted immediately by our firm and advised to never comply with what the individuals are requesting for. At the very least, we believe we were able to prevent those who contacted our office from being harmed. Our concern now is that there were people who did not contact our firm and responded to such a scam. I truly hope that no harm was caused.

The scammers, of course, use many different tactics to avoid being identified, but we can see a pattern in the stories of these potential victims. So, for any romance scam, FX scam, and scams like this one, they will do anything to take your money.  Please, if you notice anything similar as the circumstances written below with an interaction you are having with these sorts of people, do not continue conversing as they may very well be scammers. 

1. If you are asked to transfer or exchange any kind of virtual currency (i.e Bitcoin), you should note that this may be a scam. It is impossible for ordinary businesses to accept payment via Bitcoin. Therefore, if the topic of payment ever differs to an option of “Virtual Currency”, please refrain from making any kind of payment. Regardless of whether you have any expectations or are planning to receive compensation, in any case, I think it’s safe to assume individuals involving virtual currencies as a payment will usually be a scam. Even with the scam that uses our office’s name, there was an exchange where the scammer claimed that “California Courts only accept payments in virtual currency”. It is common knowledge that such a thing for a government organization would be impossible. This may be repetitive- but truly, if the word “virtual currency” continues to come into a conversation you should begin to think that it is a scam.  Paying with virtual currency at this moment in time allows for the ability to hide the identity of someone committing fraud. At the very least, if you know the bank account of the scammer, you can take legal action. No matter what type of fraud occurs online, if there is an action of transferring virtual currency, there is nothing that can be done because the transfer of virtual currency cannot be traced. Since remittances are sent not only to Japan but also to countries such as Russia and China, it is difficult for police agencies and lawyers to track them down.
2. There has recently been an increase of scammers making requests for information by posing as mail-order manufacturing companies such as Amazon. If you receive an email from such an individual, you should install settings that can identify junk mail as well as check the sender’s address for legitimacy.
3. Regarding this scam of talking about law firms, we have heard from several of our Japanese colleagues that a similar scam has already occurred.  These scams claiming to be law firms seem to target people who have already been scammed before, or whose personal information has been extracted in some way. Then, they seem to receive a call from a phone number they have never seen before. They will then recommend that you use a social networking service that does not leave a history of calls such as the app Signal. Established law firms and other institutions take great care in the importance of keeping a history of official correspondence and generally do not use social networking sites in the first place. Some law firms use LINE, but I personally do not believe in it. Regardless, if you get a call and it is something along the lines of "set up some new social networking or communication method", under the pretenses of being a law firm, consider it a scam.
4. If you do not provide any money to these people, you cannot be scammed. So, if you are approached to buy a gift card for someone and are asked to give your number- this represents virtual currency. Please consider it a scam. 

Regarding the scam that uses our firm's name, we have been contacted by people who all did not fall for the scam. So, we do not yet have a good idea of who the culprits are. However, the timing of this occurrence could possibly be a reaction to the fact that two weeks ago, our firm filed a lawsuit to identify the perpetrators of a copyright violation. 

According to the information we received from the eight people who have contacted us regarding this scam, the perpetrator was using a Japanese cell phone starting with 070, so we called the phone number he was using in cooperation with the Japanese police. We found two phone numbers that were used by the perpetrator, one of which was an answering machine. The police will be able to follow up on these phone numbers again. I will separately cooperate with them by identifying bank accounts, etc. that may be a part of this scam. In this case, the perpetrators, who are probably Japanese, have already obtained a list of people who have encountered romance scams and FX scams and are targeting Japanese people. I will not allow these people to use my law firm as a springboard to commit fraud, so I will go as far as I can to stop this from happening.
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I urge our readers that if anything like this is happening to you, to please contact us and provide us with any information possible.