Photo/Illutration The Pasona Group Inc. logo (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Officials in charge of reservations for COVID-19 vaccinations in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, noticed a troubling discrepancy in the billing numbers after outsourcing the call-in system.

The city asked major staffing agency Pasona Group Inc. to operate the phone call centers to take vaccination reservations.

On Nov. 1, 2022, Pasona submitted a report that said phone reservations had been taken from about 3,500 individuals.

However, Hirakata’s computer system only recorded about 750 residents making reservations. City officials asked Pasona to look into the discrepancy.

Pasona had entrusted Eter Co. of Osaka city with handling the phone call center for Hirakata.

Pasona officials made a surprise visit to an Eter phone call center in Osaka and found only 33 people were handling calls there although the company had said 100 operators would be onsite to take incoming calls.

That was just the tip of the iceberg.

On Feb. 10, Pasona announced that Eter had vastly exaggerated the number of operators and phone calls taken. As a result, Pasona said it had overcharged three city governments--Hirakata, Suita, also in Osaka Prefecture, and Nishinomiya in Hyogo Prefecture--a combined 1.08 billion yen ($8.2 million).

Pasona officials said they would return that sum to the three cities and would seek compensation from Eter.

Pasona also issued an apology for its inability to detect the false reports from Eter.

An Eter official declined to comment on the grounds the company was cooperating with Pasona’s investigation.

According to Pasona, Eter operated the phone call centers for the three cities between March 2021 and December 2022. During that period, Pasona overcharged Hirakata about 360 million yen, Suita about 270 million yen and Nishinomiya about 450 million yen.

Pasona officials said Eter submitted reports that vastly exaggerated the number of operators they had retained as well as the number of phone calls taken.

Pasona has also commissioned other companies to operate phone call centers, but so far no similar problems have emerged.

When Nishinomiya began COVID-19 vaccinations in May 2021, many residents complained that they could not get through on the phone to make a reservation.

It turned out that Eter had only stationed about half of the phone operators it promised in the signed contract.

Suita signed a contract to have a combined 38,000 or so phone operators on duty for 2021 and 2022, but only about 10,000 were actually manning phones during that period.

(This article was written by Kenta Nakamura, Takeshi Shimawaki, Arata Namima, Eriko Kai, Fumina Oka, Norihiko Shinjo and Kazuhide Setoguchi.)

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