Japanese fooled in poodle scam

In the last week or so a funny story has been going around the global media about a scam where rich Japanese women who wanted a poodle as a pet were deceived into buying sheep. The story which I post below is bloody funny, but it has since been revealed that it's all a hoax. Find out about the hoax by clicking here.

Japanese fooled in poodle scam

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.

"We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles," Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

"Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

"The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain, Australia."

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.

Red tape - the 'belts' in Japans' engine

How the Japanese love red tape and long-winded processes!

I don't mind a good sensible system with forms and checks but today I relived the experience I had with Vodafone, now Softbank, when I helped Jacob and his new room mate get mobile phones.

In brief, when I got my phone from Vodafone last June I had to go through all sorts of hoops, fill out forms in octicate, wait five days and shout at the staff to pull their fingers out.

Apparently as of 1 April there is a new policy in place at Softbank regarding ID requirements. In the past you just needed your passport, now you need your passport and Alien registration.

Now when you first arrive here you have to register as an Alien. You get a certificate issued which you use before your official plastic card thing arrives two weeks later. The guts of the dispute with Softbank today was they were asking clearly for the card and I was arguing with them more than clearly that their English material stipulates they require a certificate. Now the chap was being a bit Japanese and exercising his sphincter muscle over the fact I was laying into him.

He was quite good at English and I asked him the star question - "Do you know what the English word 'bullshit' means?" He said yes. I told him that what he was saying was 'bullshit' and that we would not be accepting their policy because their argument was flawed. I also leaned on him about how many people we could tell about the bad Softbank service considering how many new teachers Jacob and I have contact with.

Anyway, as Japanese do, a short natter on the phone to someone (?President?) and wallah we had phone services coming out our ears!

In true Cole-style, I had ensured Jacob and his new room mate had all the paper work in perfect order before we went. I'd already been through a five day trauma last year with this company and knew that if you went in there with your homework done they couldn't stuff you around.

You've gotta get ballsy with these folks. They'll give you the run around if you let them. Don't accept their nonsense and their inability to be flexible in a process. And a final warning, if a company is going to print English marketing material then they best have their English pretty clear otherwise they could find themselves in a dispute over the difference between a card and a certificate.