[Ecommerce] mobile-phone scam

[Takeshi Muramoto]

Recently, a mobile-phone scam, so called " one giri", is increasing horribly
especially in docomo's devices. However, no effective countermeasure is
found instead of changing victim's e-mail adress so far.

Takeshi Muramoto
Consumer Law News Network
musan@mba.sphere.ne.jp

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/index-e.htm

Con man always rings twice in new mobile-phone scam

Yomiuri Shimbun
Perpetrators of a mobile-phone scam in which callers are billed for
listening to recorded messages after returning phone calls have started
calling numbers dialed at random and letting the phone ring two or three
times, a practice known as "tsu-giri," The Yomiuri Shimbun learned recently.
In the scam's earlier form, "wan-giri," a randomly picked number was dialed
once only. Many people called back because they thought it polite to do so,
only to find themselves billed for their good manners.
Extensive media exposure of the scam, however, simply forced the swindlers
to change tactics and ring the same number several times--with results. Many
people aware of the wan-giri ploy have fallen for its mutation, the tsu-giri
call.
A 32-year-old resident of Nakano Ward, Tokyo, said she jumped out of bed
when her cell phone rang three times early Friday morning. When she called
the number back, she heard a message from a matchmaking service operated
through a Web site.
"I wouldn't have called back if it had rang only once, but I've never had
three short rings before," she said. "It was silly of me to have called
back."
But some cell-phone subscribers are fighting back against the telephone
tricksters. Keiichi Uchiyama launched a database of tsu-giri originating
numbers on his Web site in March. So far, the 25-year-old systems engineer,
with the help of victims, has logged 219 numbers.
Uchiyama said his database had to be regularly updated because the
perpetrators frequently change their numbers.
"If the person being called were to pick up the phone, the people who made
the call would be charged. So they don't let the phone ring for long," he
explained.
A spokesperson for the National Consumer Affairs Center said: "The
countermeasure is the same, no matter if it rings once or twice: Don't
return calls to unfamiliar numbers displayed on your phone."