I was hanging out along a busy restaurant and shopping street where I live in Saitama and a foreigner who didn’t speak English but spoke broken Japanese came up to me. The first thing that was strange was I was holding my dog, and he asked “犬?” I mean obviously but I replied yes. Maybe he wanted to ask to pet him but didn’t know how. But then he asked if I was Japanese and I am OBVIOUSLY not. So far I’m still chalking it up to having a cute dog and him wanting to talk to me and my dog. Maybe just a really bad nampa.
He then asks me if I have a Japanese phone number and pulls up a webpage for the pokemon center. He tries to explain he wanted to do something (maybe lottery or reservation?) and his phone number didn’t work. He only flashed the webpage for a brief moment to me. It was already loaded onto his browser. Basically just letting me see the pokemon center logo. He said he needed a Japanese number to get a confirmation. I just lied and said I still used my American number and LINE so I couldn’t help. I told him if it’s for a reservation maybe he can get an app to spoof a number or to search online for a solution to which his response was “日本電話番号ありません?” I said no and he walked away.
So much of this interaction was setting off alarm bells but maybe I’m paranoid ? Like asking me such obvious questions. His Japanese wasn’t great but certainly better than most tourists. Also this happened around 8pm about an hour from the nearest pokemon center.
So did I just avoid some sort of scam, the worst nampa ever or did I ruin some poor guys chance at a lunch at the pokemon cafe ?
by Spaghetbby