As you have learned, AI has been in the spotlight in recent years. However, AI has attracted the attention of numerous scammers who cheat others across different countries. Japan is no exception; organized scammers impersonate influencers or freelancers using AI. This article discusses a Japanese online scam group targeting overseas online jobs and its negative effects on the freelance marketplace.
What kind of Japanese online scam group is it?
First, this scam group is labeled Joho-Shozai-ya (情報商材屋) in Japanese. They have distinctive features that impersonate freelancers or influencers and sell poor-quality work and products. Another big feature is that the scam group continues to expand through an MLM scheme within a community, such as an online salon and course. Following their concrete methods.
Japanese online scammers start by spreading disinformation on the internet to gather ignoramuses first
They first spread disinformation on social media and the internet, then target ignoramuses in each industry to expand the scam organization. The reason is simple: ignoramuses are easily tricked, exploited, and manipulated. Approaching them is completely convenient and effective for scammers who intend to expand their organization. Now, let’s examine how these scammers actually mislead people online.
This one is the information product titled “23 ten thousand yen paid per week! Show you the reality of offshore side jobs to earn with AI! ” on a knowledge-selling platform. The bullet points in the lower part are written as follows:
・Prefer fully remote?
・Prefer flexible working time?
・Prefer to be paid in dollars?
・No skills, but prefer to make a lot of money?
・Prefer to be paid weekly?
・No English, but prefer to earn foreign currency?
In fact, if Japanese people want to earn dollars, they must have strong English skills, and using AI at work to misrepresent their abilities is generally seen as fraud. Nevertheless, this fake seller spreads disinformation as if it were fact. The most surprising point is that this fake seller is selling this complete nonsense for approximately 10,000 yen($150).
This one on social media is by a different person from the previous fake seller. However, this post is written content very similar to the previous one. It shows “if you use AI, you can earn easily from overseas remote jobs even if you have no skills” at first, and the bottom part is written as follows:
・No experience OK!
・No skills!
・No English! Just use AI tools!
They always emphasize that anyone can easily make money and attempt to attract ignoramuses.
These are web pages about a virtual assistant, but they are filled with content that arouses ignoramuses’ curiosity, like the following:
・Seeking easy work from home?
・Get paid 3000 yen($20) hourly with just one PC!
・No expertise required!
・No English skills required!
・Just use ChatGPT for translation!
・Get paid in dollars instead of yen hourly!
The practice of using AI for translation jobs is widely known as a translation scam. This means this page directly recommends you commit fraud. Unfortunately, numerous similar webpages already exist on the internet in Japan.
This person writes the difference in market price between Japanese yen (500 yen) and US dollars ($29) for a mysterious, unfamiliar-sounding job called prompt creation. (Naturally, the latter price is intentionally manipulated to be attractive.) After that, they explain that you can translate using ChatGPT even if you have no English skills. This person should do it themselves if they seriously consider that practice possible, but for some reason he tries to lead others to do so with disinformation instead.
Apparently, this person is bragging about attending an interview using an AI voice. However, this practice has already become a major problem—fake applicants deceive recruiters by impersonating their abilities or identities using AI voice tools. I can no longer know whether this was done intentionally or out of ignorance. By the way, it eventually seemed this person was accepted for a job, but they got paid only part of the payment. I believe the client would have been generous enough, and I don’t feel any sympathy for them.
All the disinformation below, such as “anyone can make money at overseas online jobs by using AI if you have no expertise and no English skills!”, is still being spread on the Japanese internet.
As mentioned above, the spread of disinformation online is countless. This may be done by other individuals or by someone impersonating others. Anyway, such scammers exist organizationally and infinitely online in Japan, and they continue to contaminate everywhere with convenient disinformation only for their own profitsーtheir main purpose is selling useless, unreasonable, overpriced information products to ignoramuses. I insist we must exclude them if they even slightly appear because they increase in an instant. Just like rat extermination.
Some of the Japanese online scammers lead freelancers as a ghost contractor
Japanese online scammers establish their own communities, such as online salons or courses, and some of them become ghost contractors through them. A ghost contractor is someone who entrusts a third party with their contracted job and skims off the brokerage fees. If Japanese scammers use this method, they snatch up higher brokerage fees and outsource significantly lower-paid fake jobs to others on freelancing platforms. As a result, clients will receive very poor-quality achievements. If this wickedness is rampant, forthright clients and freelancers suffer unreasonable disadvantages; furthermore, the freelance marketplace has serious adverse effects. In fact, Japanese freelancing platforms have already fallen into a dire situation due to scammers.
Incidentally, the horrible, low-paid jobs have already started to show up on Upwork from Japanese beggars. If this state continues, Upwork will follow the same path as Japanese crowdsourcing platforms.
Japanese online Scammers commit impression farming together with other scammers to stand out on social media
Japanese online scammers invariably have their own social media accounts. On social media, they pretend to be influencers while hiding that they are part of a scam group, approach each other as if meeting for the first time, and affirm their prejudiced opinions to spread disinformation as if it were fact. In that way, they wear fake authority and try to attract ignoramuses or business. It’s really uncomfortable watching those ignoramuses gather, resonating with fraudulent thoughts and propagating them to others gleefully, which looks just like a cult religion. Naturally, they lurk on several social media platforms, not just one. On the other hand, their accounts have an obvious characteristic: they are updated frequently in their desperation to lure ignoramuses. However, caution is needed as some scammers may diversify their accounts to avoid that suspicion.
Features of Japanese online scammers impersonating freelancers
The following are common features of Japanese online scammers on their social media accounts:
・Showing off fake, exaggerated abilities.
・Extremely enthusiastic about updating their own social media account.
・Spreading posts to attract ignoramuses.
・Frequently using the term “side hustle (副業)”.
・Having incredibly high expectations of AI.
・Spreading disinformation pretending to be an expert.
・Trying to lead someone to purchase their overpriced useless products.
・Gaining fake engagement and fake followers.
・Managing their own community and excessively encouraging someone to join it.
・Selling unhelpful disinformation products at a price higher than their worth. (Basically, this is their final goal, and their online disinformation spread is all to lead someone there.)
What negative effects can the Japanese online scammers influence?
The following is already occurring online in Japan, and these things are highly likely to happen in other languages:
・ Numerous fake influencers, fake freelancers, and ghost contractors appear, and then they’ll ruin freelance marketplaces. (The deceptive actions of such fakers will undermine the credibility of other freelancers and companies, leading to fewer business opportunities.)
・There will be an unlimited increase in extremely low-paid jobs due to a mass outbreak of ghost contractors.
・Disinformation will contaminate social media, all platforms, and even internet browsing. (There’s already visible movement: Japanese content is translated into other languages with AI tools, especially into English.)
How can we prevent Japanese online scammers from infiltrating job opportunities?
As mentioned, the obvious characteristics of Japanese online scammers become clearly apparent on their social media accounts, so it is the best way to verify accounts and eliminate them at the applicant stage. If they lied about not having social media accounts, their abilities would need to be assessed, but it would also be easy to eliminate them at that stage since they don’t have any skills beyond using AI. You should smoothly eliminate them by considering the possibility that they use AI tools and conducting tests that measure their original abilities and English proficiency.
Conclusion
Japanese online scammers targeting overseas jobs use fraudulent methods similar to those of scammers disrupting various domestic markets. The rise of these scams may be due to the increasing number of needy individuals, coupled with the depreciation of the Japanese yen. This can further increase the number of such scams in Japan, which has no hope of economic improvement. Freelancing platforms in Japan have been ruined by scammers, and most online information has become untrustworthy. However, many Japanese people don’t realize it or pretend not to, and hesitate to speak out against scammers. They may assume it is unrelated to them, but eventually, such individuals’ irresponsibility leads to this dire situation. I want to insist that we must not overlook scammers’ fraudulent behavior because it’s too late when we witness a tragic sight.
Remember: if you see Japanese people who pretend to be experts using AI, offer or contract remarkably low-paid jobs, provide significantly low-quality work, and spread disinformation organizationally (especially attempting to attract ignoramuses), those are the Japanese online scammers.
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