$1.50 ad, $1,700 bill: Woman exposes Tokyo toilet repair firm's inflated fees, abuse

August 29, 2023 (Mainichi Japan)

Japanese version

TOKYO -- Consumer affairs centers and other organizations have been receiving complaints from people who have been charged outrageous fees by a toilet repair company in the capital that boasted of having "the cheapest fees in the Kanto region. One woman whose son fell victim described the company's malicious sales tactics and verbal abuse the repairperson directed at her son.

The Consumer Affairs Agency identified the business as "RS Setsubi" and announced the company's name on Aug. 24 under the Consumer Safety Act, pointing out that the firm was charging high fees under the pretext of additional work despite showing low fees on its website.

A representative of RS Setsubi explained to the agency that the Taito Ward-based company went out of business in March, and its website was reportedly no longer viewable by around June.

According to the woman, her son in his 20s living in the Kanto region asked RS Setsubi for repair work in December 2022 after the toilet at the home where he lived alone became clogged.

The firm's website advertised, "Repairs of water leaks and clogging: Kanto's lowest fees starting from 220 yen (about $1.50)," "We will rush to your home in as little as 10 minutes!" "We offer clear costs! No additional charges!" and so on.

However, once the repair work began, the repairperson told the man that they would have to bring equipment to the site, and told him he would have to cough up 250,000 yen (roughly $1,700), far higher than the initial estimate.

When the man told the repairperson that he could not afford the bill, the worker verbally abused him, saying he was an "idiot" and asking him, "Can't you even pay that amount of money?" He was eventually charged 127,000 yen (approx. $870), which he later transferred to a bank account designated by the company.

The man later contacted his mother via the Line messaging app, saying that the bill was high and that the terrible response gave him a bad impression. The mother advised him to consult with a consumer center and follow the cooling-off procedure.

He subsequently filed a small claims lawsuit demanding a refund of the repair fee, and finally received one. The mother regretfully said, "My son had been living alone for only about a year, so he might have been panicking because he didn't know what to do when the toilet clogged. I wish he had consulted me before paying or talked to the landlord, since it was a rented apartment."

According to the Consumer Affairs Agency, when customers booked repair work via the company's website, a worker was dispatched and initially quoted prices ranging from several thousand yen to tens of thousands of yen (dozens of dollars to a few hundred dollars), but then explained that additional work was needed, including the use of chemicals and machinery. The amounts they charged after the work was finished were several times higher than the general fee, and in one case, the customer was charged 800,000 yen (roughly $5,500).

Between July 2022 and May 2023, consumer organizations received 355 consultations concerning RS Setsubi. Of these, customers claimed to have paid the inflated fees in 294 cases, totaling approximately 58.92 million yen (about $402,000). Some of the victims apparently received partial refunds after the consumer affairs centers intervened.

There are other customers who have complained of damage on social media, and the names of other companies have also been mentioned.

The aforementioned victim's mother said, "Because people without knowledge may pay the bill as is, I hope that the Consumer Affairs Agency's warning will appear at the top of the list when people search for repair companies on the internet."

(Japanese original by Eri Misono, Digital News Group)