For those who weren't around back in 2014, JR East intended to sell 15,000 of these cards (¥2000 including ¥1500 preloaded), expected 5,000 people at most to show up at Tokyo Station and were completely unprepared for the 9,000 who did show up, which nearly ended in a riot when they halted sales.
Eventually they decided to make them available to anyone who ordered one and sold 4.27 million, of which 2.1 million (=¥3.15 billion) haven't been used.
The preloaded money will disappear at the end of the month if you don't use the card at least once, so now's the time to treat yourself to a couple extra strong zeros.
by dokool