I recently received an email that was apparently sent out to Shinsei bank account holders who have a gaica prepaid card. The email was sent by [gaica@aplus.co.jp](mailto:gaica@aplus.co.jp), which is the company behind the gaica card. So far so good. The email contained a promotion for Sendy Credit Card and a link to this url: [https://sendy-app.com/ja/credit-ap/](https://sendy-app.com/ja/credit-ap/)
Since I have not been able to get a credit card in Japan for almost a decade, I thought I’d give it another try and wanted to apply. Everything was fine until I was asked to enter my Shinsei bank account pin. My fraud radar immediately went off and I checked the url: [net-koufuri.jp](https://net-koufuri.jp).
At this point I closed the tab without finishing the application. The thing is, besides being asked for my bank account pin on a random website, everything seems to be legit. The email I received was legit from the company behind gaica. Sendy credit card is apparently a thing according to this article from prtimes from around 2 years ago:
[https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000033.000005652.html](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000033.000005652.html)
And the website prtimes links to is the same one I received in my email. Yet, when I google sendy credit card I find no reviews, and searching this subreddit didn’t yield any results either.
I honestly don’t know if this is an obvious scam or just another case of Japan having no clue about security. Which one is it?
3 comments
> net-koufuri.jp
Contact Information:
[Name] Cards and Payments Services Division
[Email] bc-pay@kits.nttdata.co.jp
[Web Page]
[Postal code]
[Postal Address]
[Phone] 03-3280-7264
It’s a legitimate service run by NTT-DATA.
There are cases when you are needed to provide your bank pin, for example when doing account linking between services, like adding your yucho bank account to a credit card for monthly billing.
sendy-app is hosted by amazon, the domain owner is hidden but registered with onamae.com which is big/legit. I mean, its not impossible that some bad actor registered the domain, but the fact that the services it offers are going through official shinsei/ntt-data channels proves its not a scam.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the site or the service. I have personally not used it tho.
[net-koufuri.jp](https://net-koufuri.jp) is a legit. It’s a centralised service for verifying and direct debit from various banks via internet.
Not a scam. But there is a yearly fee of ¥1,500 or so, so I didn’t think it was worth it. Same info was also sent to seven bank account holders.