Overview

• On Sept. 30, the Consumer Affairs Agency published information on the fraudulent sites and issued an official warning.
• Officials identified three scam patterns and cited the domains koshinomiya.com, ricenippon.com, hikariharvest.com and natsunoroot.com.
• The sites used lures such as "site-wide 60% off" and "new rice 2024 available" to prompt quick purchases.
• One listing showed Niigata Koshihikari 5kg (2024) at ¥1,344, a price flagged as unrealistically low by the agency.
• Local consumer affairs centers recorded 223 complaints from April to July, totaling about ¥1.8 million, often involving non-delivery and unreachable sellers.