A short message sent to a mobile phone under the guise of a courier (a part of the image is processed)
There have been a series of damages and consultations in Chiba prefecture regarding fraudulent money-stealing scams and phishing scams that steal personal information on fake merchandise sales sites. It seems that the background is that the increase in "home time" due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection has increased the use opportunities such as online shopping, and the prefectural police said, "It is difficult to distinguish a fake site from the real one. I want you to do it. " [Yoshitaka Yamamoto] In December 2021, a woman in her 40s living in Chiba City ordered a toy from an overseas manufacturer (5,000 yen) on the Internet to give a Christmas present to two people attending an elementary school and a nursery school. The woman accessed the URL sent by her mother, "It's cheaper at Christmas sale," and entered her shopping site. According to her mother, she was the first site to appear when she searched for the manufacturer's name. She "has a lot of English." The woman felt uncomfortable with the site, but she thought, "I wonder if she's an overseas manufacturer," and she entered herself, her shipping address, and credit card information. After that, I received an order completion email in English. The next day, the woman sent a message from the site's inquiry form to confirm her delivery date and time. However, she never got a reply. "Something is wrong." She contacted the official website of the manufacturer, which the woman re-examined, and found that she had not been ordered. She noticed that the woman had been fooled and stopped her credit card payment, but she had already paid 5,000 yen. She resents the woman, she says, "I ordered while thinking of her happy face, but she was taken in by her feelings and she was disappointed." Even now, the toys haven't arrived, and the site I ordered has been erased. "I brought back my luggage because I was absent. Please check." In many cases, such a short message suddenly arrives at a mobile phone. According to the Prefectural Police Cybercrime Countermeasures Division, clicking on the URL will lead you to a fake online shopping site where you will be asked to enter your credit card information and be stolen. In some cases, unauthorized apps were downloaded and personal information was extracted, and in some cases the entered account information was bought and sold on dark sites. A person in charge of the department said, "If you receive a suspicious email, please consult the nearest police station." The official prefectural police channel of the video posting site "YouTube" introduces how to identify fake sites and points to note regarding suspicious short messages.
Last updated: Mainichi Shimbun