[Ecommerce] spam call scam

[Takeshi Muramoto]

Law eyed to prevent 'wangiri' phone scams

The Japan Times: Aug. 3, 2002

Toranosuke Katayama, the minister of telecommunications, said Friday his
ministry may submit a bill to the Diet in the fall to put an end to the
phone scam known as "wangiri."
"I have instructed the head of the bureau (in charge of such matters) to
consider legal measures in view of the next Diet session," Katayama told
reporters after a Cabinet meeting.
Telephone networks have been paralyzed recently due to the wangiri scams, in
which telephone service operators, usually offering sex-related phone
services, make thousands of random calls a minute to cell phones.
The New Conservative Party, one of the three ruling parties, has asked that
a bill to regulate operators of wangiri calls be submitted to the Diet
during the extraordinary session scheduled for autumn. New Komeito, also of
the tripartite coalition, has informally made a similar request.
While the details of the bill have yet to be decided, they are likely to
include such measures as punishment for offenders, which cannot at present
be carried out under contracts made with phone carriers.
On Thursday, phone carriers NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. asked for
ministry approval to tighten their contracts for telephone services,
enabling them to suspend connections for malicious callers that disrupt
their phone networks.
Katayama welcomed the move by the two regional phone carriers of Nippon
Telegraph and Telephone Corp., saying, "I am grateful that they took swift
measures."
Wangiri calls ring only once, leaving the caller's number on the cell-phone
display and tricking the receiver into returning the "missed" call.
Callers are then directed to a taped phone-sex message or to information on
other types of adult entertainment. Those who stay on the line are usually
charged huge fees.

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Takeshi Muramoto