By MIHOKO TERADA/ Staff Writer
May 13, 2023 at 06:00 JST
Online shoppers seeking a product on a retail website saw the price listed with a “Y” symbol that had a double horizontal stroke through it.
Despite the reasonable assumption the currency sign stood for the yen, many purchasers were billed in Chinese yuan, which is worth about 20 times more.
The National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan on April 19 said it has received numerous complaints about the scam since the beginning of this year and released the name of the website in question.
“We hope consumers will check carefully when they use an online retailing website to see whether it carries the seller’s information, such as their name, address and phone number,” an NCAC official said.
NCAC officials warned consumers that the currency symbol for the yen is also used to denote the Chinese currency.
The website, which goes by the name Calli-Calli, sells electronic guidebooks on Western calligraphy among other items.
A woman in her 40s in January visited the website after seeing an ad on social media, whereupon she picked a product priced at “Y1,680” and paid using her credit card.
When she received a billing notification email from the credit card company, however, she learned she had bought the product for 32,916 yen ($246), the NCAC quoted the woman as saying.
Consumer affairs centers across Japan have received about 100 similar complaints since January.
The NCAC confirmed that letters saying “Y1,680.00” appeared on the page for the product in question, along with what was likely the final confirmation page for a purchase.
Tapping a button saying “Outline of order/ Enter coupon” before ordering a purchase showed otherwise hidden text that included the letters CNY for the Chinese yuan, but an order could be completed without having the text shown.
The website in question is written in Japanese, so it could lead consumers in Japan to make purchases in the belief the prices are in yen.
The Law on Specified Commercial Transactions, which regulates mail order sales and other practices, obligates sellers to post their names, addresses, phone numbers and other data. The website, however, carried no such information, the NCAC officials said.
The website was later found to be unreachable.
“This latest trick could be imitated in the future,” the NCAC official said.
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A price is quoted using a "Y" symbol on the website in question (From materials published by the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan)
