On January 3rd, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department released on their official Twitter account, an effective way of preventing the “okaasan tasukete” (“Mom, I need your help”) telephone scams (whereby someone calls up pretending to be your son and asks you to deposit money in their bank account) that have become a pressing issue in Japan.

▲ The post on the Police Department’s Twitter account reads:
How to put a stop to okaasan tasukete telephone scams with Pretty Cure. Cool Japan(*)…
(*)Cool Japan: An expression of Japan's emergent status as a cultural superpower

They give an example of a mother who received such a phone call from a person pretending to be her son. This mother knew her son was a fan of the Pretty Cure anime series and quite cleverly the mother thought to verify if it was actually her son by asking the caller, "Can you name the 37 Pretty Cure?" And after asking this, the caller suddenly hung up.

▲ The twitter account of the real son of the mother to introduce this happening.

The Metropolitan Police Department regularly advocates that one effective way of preventing "okaasan tasukete" telephone scams is for parent and child to come up with a sign that they can use over the phone to verify each other’s identity. The example given above proves just how effective this method can be.

The real son of the mother commented on the incident saying, "My mother’s quick wit has me beat."

Tweet

Cooperation and Photo from:
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department　@MPD_yokushi
たらもさん　@ao_yoshi