This just happened to me about an hour ago.
While taking the Midosuji line from Namba to Daikokucho I was approached by a guy asking for money. He was tall, maybe 20s-30s, and dressed all in black with a black mask and hat.
He said he was from Belgium, and the hotel he was staying at confiscated his card. He asked for ¥5,000 to book a hotel for the night. When I said we don’t have any cash, he asked if we could go to an ATM together and get some. At this point I just told him point blank no and turned away, and he ended up walking to the next cart.
At no point did he seem in actual distress, and the whole request felt extremely rehearsed. After he left, another guy who overheard the whole thing said that it was definitely a scam and he’s never seen that in Japan before. The scammer guy asked if I spoke English before launching into his speech, so I’m assuming he is targeting foreigners specifically. I’m going to report it to my local station in the morning, but just wanted to put out a warning to anyone if they’re approached as well.
by Kyuubabe