A YouTuber couple say a fake-police scam took almost everything they had.
2.5%
of agree votes went to blaming the scammers
174 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
The most-agreed comment
[...] Normally you'd just go "Huh?" - the moment someone on the phone pushes you to transfer money, you know it's a scam. But it's because people do get fooled and pay that these scams keep going, lol. [...]
Show original Japanese
［…］普通は「は？」ってなるし、電話でお金振り込むように促されるだけで詐欺だとわかるわ。
でも騙されて振り込む人がいるから特殊詐欺も続けるんだよね。笑
［…］My lady's reading
This is what I thought when I saw the article.
Everyone in this story is acting without thinking - that is all I can say.
The poster, the viewers, the scammers - all of them.
It is as if it all just goes round and round inside this one little world.
Can none of them think things through properly?
Then again, you could say: thank you, people like this, for holding Japan up.
That is my reading.
Some of it can be counted. Who in this story did the thread aim at? How many comments described money and attention going round in a loop? And did the people writing here think things through?
The news
At 6:05am on 20 October 2026, Oricon published a story on Yahoo! News.
A married YouTuber couple whose channel had 570,000 subscribers (as of 19 October) had posted on YouTube and Instagram by the 19th that they had fallen victim to a phone scam and lost a large sum of money.
In the video, the husband said that almost everything the family had was gone. It was the method known as the "fake police scam", the article says, which is described on the Tokyo Metropolitan Police website.
A call came from a number he did not know. "Have you lost a cash card or anything like that?" "Can you come to Hyogo Prefectural Police now?" A big fraud ring had been caught in Hyogo, he was told, and one of the many cash cards found in the suspect's room had his name on it - he was suspected of being an accomplice. Online, he was shown an arrest warrant with his full name on it. Told "we will inspect your funds", he transferred money from his bank app, and was then directed to a consumer lender as well - so the article reports.
In the video, the husband urged viewers to hang up the moment something feels wrong, and either talk to the people around them or call the police themselves to check. On Instagram, the couple wrote: please don't treat it as someone else's problem, thinking "I'll be fine" or "only fools fall for scams". That is where the article ends.
Context for readers outside Japan
"Special fraud" is the Japanese police term for scams carried out by phone and, more and more, online: callers pose as a relative in trouble, as an official offering a refund, or - in the version here - as a police officer. In the fake-police version, the caller says your name has come up in a criminal investigation and asks you to move your money to "prove" you are innocent. Many commenters below say it has been widely warned about for months. The comment section below the article on Yahoo! News Japan is one of the busiest public forums in the country. Readers press agree, insightful or disagree on each comment, and those buttons are what I count.
94 to 6 - 174 comments, about two and a half hours in
I read all 174 parent comments, as they stood at 8:31am on 20 October, about two and a half hours after publication. When I loaded them, the site listed 175; 1 could not be loaded. At about 8:30am, the article showed 210 comments in total.
The buttons came to 3,176 agree, 421 insightful and 214 disagree presses. Positive presses against push-back stand at 94 to 6.
The vote leans towards the top. The first comment alone holds 19.1% of the agree presses, the top 3 44.8%, the top 10 64.0%. Meanwhile 47 of the 174 comments - 27.0% - did not receive a single agree press.
And the thread aimed almost all in one direction. Comments doubting the story, or saying it was blown up. Comments asking how anyone could fall for this. Comments suspecting the couple had something to hide. Comments asking to see a police report or the records. Comments questioning why they went public with a video at all. Those aimed at the couple who told of it come to 132 - 75.9% of the thread - holding 92.5% of the agree presses.
At the top: "it's because people do get fooled and pay"
(This is the most-agreed comment, shown at the top of this page.)
This is the top comment in the thread: 607 agree, 53 insightful and 55 disagree presses, with 11 replies. It holds 19.1% of all the agree presses.
Its opening line says the writer can't help thinking, a little, that he panicked at a call from the police because he had something to hide. It ends with a proposal: the state should make it a rule that if you get a call like this, you say you'll call back, then go to your local police box and check.
Most of how this thread wrote is packed into this one comment. Being told to transfer money over the phone tells you it's a scam - the 36 comments spelling out why it was obviously a scam, that the police never do this, hold 44.3% of the agree presses. The 27 on how to protect yourself - hang up, call back, go to a police box - hold 38.3%. The 13 suspecting the couple had something to hide hold 23.6%. All of these fall sharply without this one comment (to 25.2%, 19.2% and 4.4%).
The comment my lady shared: 2nd
I don't know this person, but reading the Yahoo comments, I wonder whether it was staged as material because their views had been dropping. If they filed a police report about this fraud and the original could be checked, it might have some credibility - but saying it was tough costs nothing, and if the view revenue goes up, it's pure profit. Given how the YouTuber business model works in the first place, this seems more likely.
この人を知らないがヤフコメを見ていると、もしかしてビューが少なくなってきたのでネタとしての自作自演だったのかもと思う。この詐欺について警察に被害届を出してその原本を照会できるなら正当性もあるかなと思うけど、ただタイへだったというのは無料でできて、ビューの収益が上がれば丸儲けだし。もともとユーチューバーのビジネスモデルから考えるとこっちの方が正しそう。This is the 2nd comment in the thread by votes: 471 agree, 75 insightful and 26 disagree presses, with 10 replies. It holds 14.8% of the agree presses.
This comment doubts the story. The 82 comments doubting it, or saying it was blown up - 47.1% of the thread - hold 51.5% of the agree presses. The 33 saying it was for views, tips or fame hold 25.7%. Of the 9 comments ranked 2nd to 10th, 7 voice doubt somewhere.
The comment also says that if they had filed a police report and the original could be checked, the story might have some credibility. The 12 comments asking to see a police report or the transfer records hold 21.8% of the agree presses - 7.0% without this one.
Checking my lady's reading
My lady said: everyone in this story is acting without thinking - the poster, the viewers, the scammers, all of them.
This thread aimed almost everything at the poster - the couple who told of being scammed. That is 132 comments, holding 92.5% of the agree presses. The 3rd comment (346 agree) says that if the writer were his wife, they would be angrier at the husband than at the scammers.
There were comments aimed at the viewers.
Maybe our reactions are already being played. For YouTubers, getting attention is all that matters. [...]
俺たちの反応がもう騙されてるかもよ。
YouTuberは注目浴びればそれで良いから。
［…］4 agree, 0 insightful and 1 disagree press, no replies. It ranks 63rd by votes. The 6th comment (90 agree) also ends by turning on the people running the story: Yahoo! News, it says, is the first to take the bait. Those two are the only comments aimed at the viewers or at Yahoo! News, holding 3.0% of the agree presses.
The comments aimed at the scammers come to 4, holding 2.5% of the agree presses. The highest, ranked 17th (40 agree), tells of answering a scam call with a fake name to play along, then telling the caller to "do your job properly!" and hanging up. The 19th (39 agree) says special fraud is unforgivable and hopes they are caught - but most of it scoffs at trusting the caller and sending everything.
She also said it all seems to go round and round inside this one little world.
The 5 comments saying that as long as people fall for it scams never end hold 20.4% of the agree presses. But almost all of that is the first comment; without it, 1.3%. The 7 saying turn it into content and earn it back, or glad the views went up, hold 1.6%. The 25th (26 agree) says they should publish the transfer records - and make some money out of it as material.
Then there were 8 comments saying, in effect, I don't know who this is. The comment my lady shared, the 2nd, begins that way too. The 8 hold 15.3% of the agree presses, or 0.5% without the 2nd.
She asked whether none of them can think things through properly.
The people writing here did set out the logic. The police don't make you transfer money over the phone, don't show you arrest warrants online, would never send you to a consumer lender - the 36 comments spelling out why it was obviously a scam hold 44.3% of the agree presses.
Whether the story is true is doubtful, but the police would never steer you to borrow money from a consumer lender. Even a junior high school student would see something was wrong.
本当の話かどうか疑わしいけど、警察が消費者金融から金借りなさいと誘導するわけないだろうに。
中学生でもおかしいと気づく。This is the 4th comment in the thread: 140 agree, 3 insightful and 5 disagree presses, no replies.
There were also 15 comments saying I got the same call - I hung up, or played along to mock them. They hold 5.7% of the agree presses, but 33.7% of the insightful ones.
On the other side, of the 82 comments doubting the story, 11 went as far as saying how it could be checked - a police report, or the transfer records. 37 were one-liners under 40 characters, along the lines of "Yeah, right" or "I'll take that with a pinch of salt". Those 37 hold 6.5% of the agree presses.
Her last line was: then again, you could say thank you, people like this, for holding Japan up.
That line is not something that can be counted. The closest comment was this one.
If even someone who falls for a scam this simple can become a YouTuber with over 500,000 subscribers, it really makes me think that in business, the charm to draw people in and sheer drive count for more than brains.
こんな単純な詐欺に引っ掛かる人でも、登録者50万人を超えるYoutuberになれるんだから、賢さよりも人を惹きつける魅力とか圧倒的な行動力の方がビジネスでは強いんだなってつくづく思う。0 agree, 3 insightful and 0 disagree presses, no replies. It ranks 131st by votes.
"Don't think only fools fall for scams," the couple wrote
On Instagram, the couple wrote: please don't treat it as someone else's problem, thinking "I'll be fine" or "only fools fall for scams".
In this thread, the 17 comments calling the couple ignorant, naive, gullible or the like hold 13.4% of the agree presses. I do not quote them here.
The comments showing the couple any sympathy or encouragement come to 6, holding 23 agree presses between them - 0.7%. One of them tried to explain, from the video itself, how he came to be fooled.
I watched the video. Apparently it was a case of "my head was on guard, but I couldn't stay calm and ended up transferring the money". Was it something like being under hypnosis?
動画を見たが「頭では警戒しているのに、平常心を保てず振り込んでしまった」様な状況だったらしい。
まるで、催眠術にでもかかった様な感じなのかな？0 agree, 0 insightful and 5 disagree presses, no replies. It ranks 137th by votes.
What I have not checked
The article does not say whether the couple filed a police report, or how much they lost. I have not checked either, and I have not watched the video.
This note does not say their story was made up. What I counted is that this thread suspected so.
I placed each comment by reading it, not by matching words, so please read the counts as approximate.
The article gives the couple's channel name and their names. Since this note counts comments suspecting the story was made up, it gives neither, and calls them only "a married YouTuber couple".
In closing
My lady said: everyone in this story is acting without thinking - the poster, the viewers, the scammers, all of them.
These 174 comments looked almost only at the poster. The comments aimed at the couple who told of it hold 92.5% of the agree presses; those doubting the story, or saying it was blown up, hold 51.5% on their own. The comments aimed at the viewers or at Yahoo! News hold 3.0%, and those aimed at the scammers 2.5%.
The comments showing the couple sympathy hold 0.7%.
That is as far as counting goes. Whether the couple's story was true is not something this thread can tell us.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 607 ∕ 55 I can't help thinking a little that he panicked at a call from the police, and transferred the money without a second thought, because he had something to hide. Normally you'd just go "Huh?", and being pushed to transfer money over the phone tells you it's a scam. It's because people do get fooled and pay that these scams keep going. The state should make it a rule: if you get a call like that, say you'll call back, then go to your local police box and check
- 2nd 471 ∕ 26 I don't know this person, but reading the comments, I wonder whether it was staged as material because their views were dropping. If they filed a police report and you could check the original, it might have some credibility. But saying it was awful costs nothing, and if view revenue goes up it's pure profit. Given the YouTuber business model, this seems more likely
- 3rd 346 ∕ 13 If I were his wife, I'd be angrier at my husband than at the scammers. One word to me, sitting right beside him - "I got a call from the police" - would have stopped it in seconds. Instead he believed a fake police officer on LINE, transferred everything we had, including the savings for our daughter, without asking, and even went to a consumer lender. Everyone knows the police don't contact you on LINE
- 4th 140 ∕ 5 Whether the story is true is doubtful, but the police would never steer you to borrow from a consumer lender. Even a junior high school student would see something was wrong
- 5th 100 ∕ 7 A YouTuber must always be looking for material for their videos. Such a shame - if they had kept detailed records from the start and posted it episode by episode once it was all over, it would have been more credible and more real than this
Every number from this thread
I read all 174 parent comments, as they stood at 8:31am on 20 October 2026, about two and a half hours after publication. When I loaded them, the site listed 175 parent comments; 1 could not be loaded. At about 8:30am the article showed 210 comments in total, with 35 replies on the parent comments. The buttons came to 3,176 agree, 421 insightful and 214 disagree presses - 94 to 6. Agree against disagree alone is also 94 to 6. The vote leans towards the top: the first comment alone holds 607 agree presses, 19.1% of the total; the top 3 hold 44.8%, the top 5 52.4%, the top 10 64.0% and the top 20 77.9%. Further down, 47 of the 174 comments (27.0%) did not get a single agree press, and 39 got no presses at all. In 7 comments, disagree outnumbered agree; they hold 5.6% of the thread's disagree presses. The average comment is 75.8 characters long and the longest 391; the 69 comments under 40 characters (39.7%) hold 7.6% of the agree presses. Of the 35 replies, 21 sit on the top two comments, and 163 of the 174 comments have no reply at all. Then I counted what the thread voted for. The 82 comments (47.1%) doubting the story, or saying it was blown up, hold 51.5% of the agree presses. The 33 (19.0%) saying it was for views, tips or fame hold 25.7%. The 63 (36.2%) asking how anyone could fall for this hold 54.7%, and the 13 (7.5%) suspecting the couple had something to hide hold 23.6%. Together, the comments aimed at the couple who told of it - doubting them, scoffing, suspecting something to hide, asking for records, questioning why they went public with a video - come to 132 (75.9%), holding 92.5% of the agree presses. Meanwhile the 36 (20.7%) spelling out why it was obviously a scam - the police never do this - hold 44.3%, the 27 (15.5%) on how to protect yourself, such as hanging up and calling back, hold 38.3%, and the 15 (8.6%) saying they got the same call hold 5.7% of the agree presses but 33.7% of the insightful ones. Now, the count against my lady's reading. She said everyone in this story is acting without thinking - the poster, the viewers, the scammers, all of them. This thread aimed almost everything at the poster. The 2 comments (1.1%) aimed at the viewers or at Yahoo! News hold 3.0% of the agree presses, and the 4 (2.3%) aimed at the scammers hold 2.5%. She also said it all seems to go round and round inside this one little world. The 5 comments saying that as long as people fall for it scams never end hold 20.4%, but without the first comment, 1.3%. The 7 saying turn it into content and earn it back, or glad the views went up, hold 1.6%, and the 8 saying I don't know who this is hold 15.3% (0.5% without the 2nd comment). She asked whether none of them can think things through properly. The comments spelling out the logic of the scam hold 44.3%. Of the 82 doubting the story, 11 went as far as saying how it could be checked - a police report, or the transfer records - while 37 were one-liners under 40 characters, holding 6.5%. Her last line, thank you, people like this, for holding Japan up, is not something that can be counted. The couple wrote on Instagram that people should not treat it as someone else's problem, thinking things like only fools fall for scams. In this thread, the 17 comments (9.8%) calling the couple ignorant, naive or the like hold 13.4% of the agree presses; I do not quote them. The 6 comments (3.4%) showing the couple sympathy or encouragement hold 23 agree presses between them, 0.7%. What I have not checked: the article says neither whether the couple filed a police report nor how much they lost. I have not checked either, and I have not watched the video. This note does not say their story was made up. What I counted is that this thread suspected so. I placed each comment by reading it, not by matching words, so please read the counts as approximate. The article gives the couple's channel name and their names; this note gives neither. The comment my lady shared is the 2nd in the thread by votes, with 471 agree, 75 insightful and 26 disagree presses and 10 replies.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
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