Imagine that you're at home, on a Saturday night, enjoying your free time after work and all of a sudden, someone is at the door. Guess who it is? It's a guy from NBC (or Radio Canada or any other single channel) and he's here to collect $26.50/month fee from you for the crime of simply having a TV. How would you feel?
So tonight, after work, I headed home to my apartment to get changed. There's a vending machine (common in Japan) outside of my apartment and I noticed that there was a guy in a suit kind of loitering about. I didn't think much of it, since this is Japan, and crime is almost non-existent. A few minutes after entering my apartment, this same guy rings my doorbell. So, out of curiosity, I opened the door to find a Japanese man (mid 40's) of middle height, dressed in a mismatched suit with a fanny pack containing one of those electronic reader things, speaking in Japanese to me. I don't really need to explain that, considering my limited Japanese, and his English of 3 spoken words, we were going to have a problem.
At first, I thought that this guy was trying to sell me something. I mean, why else does someone knock on your door at 8:00 o clock for? In our unsuccessful dialogue, I managed to make out the words TV, NHK (a popular channel here in Japan), and remote control. So, I figured he wanted me to buy cable or something, since he also kept pointing at the figure $26.50 (which is an outrageous price for one channel!). After trying to get him to leave and trying to explain that I didn't have any money, I realized that he probably didn't want me to buy something. At this point, we were both frustrated so I decided to call my manager, who promptly talked to guy to see what the heck I was getting heckled about.
After this quick conversation, my manager explained to me that he was here to collect a bill for that specific TV channel but had kindly explained to him that he should come back another time. After hanging up the phone, he STILL wouldn't leave. This guy was just heckling the shit out of me. Couldn't he get the point that I didn't speak Japanese? After a few minutes of trying to explain that I would pay him next time so he should come back, I gave up and called my manager again. This time, my manager got him to leave. He agreed to come back on Monday, at which time, I was instructed by my manager to ignore him.
So, after all this, I was really confused. Was I getting scammed or did I really owe money to some bill collector for some random channel I didn't even know I had? My manager explained to me that these guys from NHK try to bully people into paying for this channel. Apparently, these guys claim that we legally have to pay for this channel (it's one fucking channel!) but most people just ignore them. They try to catch you at odd hours of the day and get you to cough up some dough by being very direct and refusing to leave. It's also apparently a bad idea to answer the door unless you're expecting a delivery or friends because they aren't the only guys trying to collect money. Milk men and newspaper dudes are also in on it. So yeah, lesson learned: Don't open the door in Japan. Also, most people have illegal cable in Japan and they only pay for it if they get caught by creepers on Saturday nights. At least...I THINK that's right. Who knows? I'm still confused.
At first, I thought that this guy was trying to sell me something. I mean, why else does someone knock on your door at 8:00 o clock for? In our unsuccessful dialogue, I managed to make out the words TV, NHK (a popular channel here in Japan), and remote control. So, I figured he wanted me to buy cable or something, since he also kept pointing at the figure $26.50 (which is an outrageous price for one channel!). After trying to get him to leave and trying to explain that I didn't have any money, I realized that he probably didn't want me to buy something. At this point, we were both frustrated so I decided to call my manager, who promptly talked to guy to see what the heck I was getting heckled about.
After this quick conversation, my manager explained to me that he was here to collect a bill for that specific TV channel but had kindly explained to him that he should come back another time. After hanging up the phone, he STILL wouldn't leave. This guy was just heckling the shit out of me. Couldn't he get the point that I didn't speak Japanese? After a few minutes of trying to explain that I would pay him next time so he should come back, I gave up and called my manager again. This time, my manager got him to leave. He agreed to come back on Monday, at which time, I was instructed by my manager to ignore him.
So, after all this, I was really confused. Was I getting scammed or did I really owe money to some bill collector for some random channel I didn't even know I had? My manager explained to me that these guys from NHK try to bully people into paying for this channel. Apparently, these guys claim that we legally have to pay for this channel (it's one fucking channel!) but most people just ignore them. They try to catch you at odd hours of the day and get you to cough up some dough by being very direct and refusing to leave. It's also apparently a bad idea to answer the door unless you're expecting a delivery or friends because they aren't the only guys trying to collect money. Milk men and newspaper dudes are also in on it. So yeah, lesson learned: Don't open the door in Japan. Also, most people have illegal cable in Japan and they only pay for it if they get caught by creepers on Saturday nights. At least...I THINK that's right. Who knows? I'm still confused.
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