When you search the scam happened in Japan, you can see many articles about the scam by Toyota Shoji Co. Ltd. Toyota Shoji engaged in door-to-door sales of gold in the 1908s. They first made sales calls by phone to identify households that may have the possibility of making a contract. Their main targets were elderly people living alone.
Salespeople visited their homes, sometimes even helping with personal chores, gradually building close relationships, and they sometimes forced customers into signing contracts. Even after contracts were signed, the customers could not receive the gold. The gold was kept by Toyota Shoji, while customers only received certificates in return. In order to gain trust, they used the company name starting “TOYOTA” to make it seem like it's an affiliated with TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION and aired many TV commercials to appear a stable and reliable company. The number of victims reached tens of thousands, and the total damage amounted to 200 billion yen, which was the largest at that time.
Looking back now, it is surprised that people were deceived so easily, but in the 1980s, when door-to-door sales were often done and there were no cell phones or the internet, it was difficult for victims to realize they had been defrauded.I want to remember that a “get-rich” opportunity never comes only to me.
