Damage from Aeon Card Fraud in Japan Reaches 9.9 B. Yen

Tokyo, March 13 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Aeon Financial Service Co. said Thursday that the total amount of damage from illicit transactions that took advantage of an offline payment function of its Aeon Card credit card reached 9.9 billion yen.

Such fraudulent transactions have been on the rise since last spring, affecting several tens of thousands of Aeon Card users, according to the financial arm of retail giant Aeon Co.

Aeon Financial is working on compensating for the damage. It expects to book 9.9 billion yen in extraordinary losses for the business year that ended last month.

The company said that it has almost completely stopped any new illicit transactions from being conducted through the measures already taken.

"We sincerely apologize for our failure to promptly stop the spread of unauthorized credit card use and act quickly in our response to customers who suffered damage," President Shunsuke Shirakawa told a press conference.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]