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Home-Renovation Scam Targeted Senior Citizens
The Asahi Shimbun
Japan
July 4, 2005
More than 60 percent of the people who contracted the Samnin group for often needless, pricy home repairs were aged 60 or older, an indication the home-renovation group deliberately preyed on seniors less likely to question the scam, police said.
Tokyo police last week arrested four employees of the group for allegedly tricking homeowners into ordering costly repair work that was often unnecessary.
Police said they had so far turned up 5,399 people in Tokyo and 33 prefectures who had signed contracts with Samnin group companies from April 2002 through October 2004.
Among them, 1,815 were in their 60s, 1,513 in their 70s and 1,183 in their 50s.
There were also 873 in their 40s, 10 in their 80s and five in their 90s.
According to police, after deciding on an area, the group employees, passing themselves off as power or construction company staff, first called homes to ascertain the status of the occupants.
That information was entered in fact sheets.
Samnin group salespeople would then visit the homes listed as being occupied by seniors or people living alone. They also made a point of calling on people who had previous renovations or repairs done, police said.
The Samnin group also obtained lists of customers from bankrupt home renovation contractors, which it is suspected of using for sales calls.
A woman in her 60s living alone in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, for example, had her home renovated some years ago by a company that has since folded.
In April last year, a Samnin Japan Co. salesperson knocked on her door and talked her into signing a contract for repairs to the outer walls and in areas underneath her home's first-floor floorboards.
Her bill came to 14 million yen.
A man in his 60s living alone in Tokyo's Fuchu was also talked into signing a contract for work in four areas, including the roof, by two Samnin East Co. employees who visited
him in August 2002.
His bill came to about 8.4 million yen.
Just a year before, the outer walls of the man's house had been worked on by another contractor at a cost of about 9 million yen.
The two senior citizens later said that they had felt the salespeople were pushy and the prices high. However, the woman said, "I didn't know where to go for advice."
The man, meanwhile, said he did not file a complaint over the contractor as he did not want to trouble his brother who lives in another part of the country.
Police also found that the Samnin salespeople lied to or threatened customers who wanted to cancel contracts during the "cooling-off period" that allows residents to unconditionally cancel contracts.
The law on door-to-door sales allows consumers to cancel contracts within eight days of receiving the written contract. It also bans companies from lying to or threatening consumers wishing to legitimately terminate the contract.
Samnin East employees, said police, sometimes shouted at clients who telephoned wanting to call off the repair work.
Since 2002, the Tokyo metropolitan Comprehensive Consumer Center has received 17 complaints relating to similar attempts by Samnin companies to obstruct contract cancellations during the cooling-off period.
In one case, the salesperson could not be reached until the eight-day cooling-off period had ended.
In another case, a salesperson offered dire predictions that the house would suffer greater damage if repairs were not done soon.
Sometimes, repair work was begun the same day a contract was signed.
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