Japanese people scammed

It’s a sad fact that many Japanese are ignorant of the world outside of Japan. This makes it rather easy for someone who sounds like they know what they are talking about to fool certain Japanese people into believing almost any bullshit about foreign countries. I have managed to feed various bullshit about my home country to Japanese people; it is rather sad. Of course, there are lots of morons in other countries, but even Japanese who have advanced degrees tend to not know much beyond what Japanese TV has told them about the outside world.  Most Japanese TV programs that deal with other countries are horribly stupid, especially travel and trivia shows.  Did you know there is an animal called an Anteater?  WOW, no wayy!!!!!!!

Anyway, here’s an article about some really stupid people:

Eight people duped in scam over fake $1 million US bills, report says

Canadian Press

Thursday, February 16, 2006

TOKYO (AP) – Eight people in southern Japan forked over the equivalent of $1.27 million US to a man who promised huge returns involving fake $1 million bills and then disappeared with their money, a news report said Thursday.

The United States Treasury does not make $1 million bills. The eight, including three who have filed for personal bankruptcy because of the huge outlays in the scam, are considering filing a criminal complaint with police, the national daily Asahi Shimbun said. Police in Kumamoto, 900 kilometres southwest of Tokyo, could not immediately comment on the report.

The unidentified investors first heard of the $1 million note from a 52-year-old construction material company president in early 2003, according to Asahi, citing several investors.

The president told them about a “rare” $1 million bill that was for sale in Chengdu, China, and invited them to pool money to buy several such notes promising a return 10 times of their investment, the report said.

The investors were told that the U.S. government printed the bills in 1928 when Chiang Kai-shek was still in power in China to allow Americans to bring their assets back home, Asahi said.

The president showed them a thousand of the $1 million notes featuring a portrait of George Washington at a Tokyo hotel, according to Asahi. The investors were told the notes could be exchanged for smaller denominations in Hong Kong, but no exchange ever took place, it reported.

“We continued to fork over money because we were promised, ‘You’ll get several hundreds of millions of yen in three days,’ or ‘You’ll get that amount in a week,’ ” one investor was quoted as saying.

By last March, the eight had paid a total of about $1.27 million, but the company president said the bills would be exchanged by the end of April and he disappeared, according to the report.

The largest U.S. denomination ever produced was $100,000 between 1934 and 1935, according to the Treasury.

© The Canadian Press 2006