Bad Scam

I'm not sure if I got all the details, but the other day the morning talk show had a piece about people who were cheating elderly folks. Apparently the scam starts with a phone call offering to come to your house and check the water quality. I think this may claim to be an official agency of some sort. So someone comes out and does something with your water. I'm not sure if they actually take a sample or simply play with it. But then comes the surprising news that your water quality is not good. Apparently they suggest that it may be causing cancer. But they have a water filter that you can use for a price. The price? I think they said that they are getting from 4,000,000 to 7,000,000 yen ($40,000-$70,000?). And the filter apparently is a cheap gadget that you could pick up at the local hardware store for probably under $50. One complaint indicated that the filter they got didn't even have charcoal or filtering, just some ordinary stones.

The scammers apparently have been hitting 60 and 70-year-old people. The talk show was indicating that one person had been doing this for eight months, another for more than a year. There was also a lawyer saying that he wasn't too sure how they would prosecute this, apparently because there was an actual product delivered, even if it was overpriced and the sales pitch was less than honest.

I have to wonder why they didn't find a real sales job. I suppose this kind of fake product makes a lot more money.