Anger Rising At Japanese Mobile Phone Scam

from the there-ought-to-be-a-law... dept

Apparently, there's a big mobile phone scam going around in Japan, that is pissing off everyone, but which doesn't actually break any (current) laws in Japan. The scam works by having a computer mass call thousands of random mobile phone numbers, and then immediately hanging up after one ring. Then, curious receivers of the call want to see who just called them and hung up - and so they call back the number. The callers get what is described as a "salacious message" and are then sent a huge bill for the call. Not only is it annoying, and disturbing people at all hours of the day and night, but the massive number of calls going out is degrading network performance, often completing knocking parts of the mobile phone network offline. Lawmakers in Japan are looking at ways to make this illegal (so far they arrested one of the scammers - but on pornography charges).

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