The Phantom Jackpot - Confessions of Victim X (early 2000s)

The Phantom Jackpot - Confessions of Victim X (early 2000s)

In the early 2000s, Japan was in the midst of a prolonged recession following the bursting of the bubble economy, and as restructuring and non-regular employment spread, people were looking for a "surefire way to make money. The "pachinko strategy" business exploited this mentality. The words "direct hit method" and "90% win rate" that appeared in magazine advertisements stimulated more anxiety and hope than reason. Mr. X, 35, of Tokyo, purchased a copy of the "Shinkai Monogatari jackpot direct hit hitting method" for 100,000 yen, but all he received was a vague manual. No matter how many times he tried, there were no results, and a few months later, the sales company disappeared. He reported the damage, but no progress was made. "It was an expensive tuition fee," he says. But then his personal information was resold, and he received a series of solicitation calls for "improved" and "back channel" information. Cash-on-delivery scams and information sales methods spread across
the country, and the number of consultations with the National Consumer Affairs Center increased. In an age when information spreads faster than truth, trust has become a commodity, and hope is traded.