Police report victim met fraudster on social media before falling for space rescue plea
PublishedSeptember 4, 2025 2:50 PM EDT•UpdatedSeptember 4, 2025 2:20 PM EDT
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New one: It’s no secret that old people are usually targeted by scammers because of their lack of tech savviness and their yearning to talk people’s ears off.
And honestly, most of the time, I can understand how they’d make these mistakes.
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I wouldn’t fall for a text from my “grandson” asking for money so he can post bail, but only in the form of Amazon gift cards. However, I can see how an old person might.
I can even understand how they’d fall for the Nigerian prince scam. It sounds plausible. Nigeria sounds like it has a prince… probably.
But one scam that I can’t believe someone fell for? The oldest scam in the book: the ol’ “I’m a stranded astronaut and need money to get home” scam.
Unfortunately, according to CBS News, one poor old woman in Japan took the bait on this one and is out thousands.
Police say that the woman, who lives on the country’s northern island of Hokkaido, met the scammer on social media and started exchanging messages. At some point, the conversation started to go out of this world, with the scammer telling her, “in space on a spaceship right now.” However, this non-existent spaceship was “under attack and in need of oxygen.”
The scammer asked the old woman to send money so he could buy oxygen, and she sent 1 million yen, or about $6,700.
An elderly woman in Hokkaido, Japan lost $6,700 to a scammer who claimed to be a stranded astronaut in space needing money for oxygen supplies. (Getty images)
Not To Victim Blame, But…
Now, I feel bad for this lady… but c’mon, ma’am. First of all, if this astronaut had social media and could contact you, why not just contact mission control? They could probably help out in this situation, seeing as it’s their job.
Also, once he got the oxygen money, how was that going to get delivered to him? And, if they could deliver it to him, why not just rescue him from his under-siege spacecraft?!
To this point, wouldn’t an astronaut stuck in space, running out of oxygen, and under attack (by the way, from what?) be pretty news-worthy? I don’t think she’s skimming through X or anything, but I would bet a few yen that she has walked past newspaper boxes.
We had two astronauts stuck in space last year, and it was a huge story. They weren’t even under attack or running out of air. They just had to stay up there for a few extra months floating around, doing science fair projects, and eating dehydrated ice cream sammiches or whatever until Trump got elected and Elon Musk got the green light to save them.
Also, I don’t expect this lady to be an expert on the financial figures related to space travel, but shooting an order of oxygen would cost way more than $6,700. If I try to get Chipotle delivered from like two and a half miles away, it costs like $25. Do the math here, this delivery would cost a fortune and require one hell of a tip, too.
Japan has the second-oldest population behind Monaco, which means that, unfortunately, this is a common occurrence. Scams, I mean. Not astronauts in need of oxygen getting trapped on under-siege spaceships.
AloJapan.com