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The story
A news story about worsening “customer harassment” (kasu-hara) toward delivery drivers has been picked up on 5ch’s Newsspeed VIP board. The thread split between posters defending drivers with “delivery customers have terrible manners” and others pushing back with “they’re professionals, they should just handle it” — while drivers themselves shared raw, firsthand accounts, from being forced to deliver in the middle of a sudden torrential downpour to having a car crash straight into their house.
A Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare survey found that more than 40% of people working in the delivery industry have experienced customer harassment — a figure far above the cross-industry average, and the starting point for the discussion.
As demand for home delivery keeps growing, “customer harassment” toward the people who do that work is becoming a serious problem. In the first-ever survey targeting delivery-industry workers, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare found that more than 40% reported experiencing customer harassment — far higher than in surveys covering workers across all industries. Some point out that Japan’s famously attentive delivery service is itself inviting this harassment, and a number of companies have begun taking a firmer stance in response.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Figures — it's always people in inherently strong positions, like civil servants or train station staff, who get protected.
Isn't that normal? You say it too, don't you?
I don't, actually — every delivery driver in my area is competent.
That's what doorbell cameras are for, lol!
And where do you think their paycheck comes from?
Same as taxes — people who barely pay anything act so entitled. Literally paying about the price of a can of juice and still being that shameless.
I've worked all kinds of jobs, and delivery customers are by far the worst. With a convenience store or supermarket there's at least some concept of "customer base" — but with delivery, whether it's ritzy Minato Ward or the old downtown, the manners are exactly the same.
Yeah, that's just normal, lol.
90% of them are harassment-prone customers anyway. Plus, going by the address, there's someone sharing a name with some self-important "expert" — and it's obviously that exact guy placing the most absurd, garbage orders.
People who say stuff like that — even when a driver's just been in an accident — are trash. Go look at the job listings, "pro" my ass, don't make me laugh.
Them: "That's customer harassment, sir."
Me: "…"
Scheduled time-slot delivery is fundamentally broken to begin with — unless you're paying enough for your one household alone to cover that day's entire revenue, don't expect it to work.
Of course they haven't agreed to it — that's why everyone quits, Co-op, Yamato, all of them. Ever notice how your regular driver keeps changing? That's exactly why.
Not rock-bottom.
Rock-bottom is being a regular salaryman, honestly.
Then just get rid of scheduled time slots. People use it because it exists (charge extra for it!).
Use it if you want, but don't complain if it doesn't show up on time — be grateful it arrives at all. Though if the item's actually damaged, sure, complain about that.
That earlier illegal-parking-in-Shibuya thread blew up too, lol.
A driver crashed their whole car into my house once.
As long as they still have a license, I guess they can keep working.
That's just how it should be. Though there are a ton of people who can't even manage that much.
Well, I wouldn't go as far as saying you need to bow and scrape, though.
Maybe they were just in the bathroom.
The time I wanted to kill someone the most was during a sudden torrential downpour — I called to say deliveries had to be paused, but the customer just steamrolled me with "never mind that, bring it now," and the call center wouldn't back me up either. So I had no choice but to reroute and rush that one house ahead of everyone else, and because of that, everyone else's deliveries got massively delayed. I still can't forget that one.
Background and Key Points
The term at the center of this thread, “kasu-hara” (customer harassment, from “kasutama” – customer – plus “harassment”), is part of a broader Japanese vocabulary of workplace-harassment categories that also includes “pawa-hara” (power harassment, bullying by superiors) and “seku-hara” (sexual harassment). Unlike those, kasu-hara has only recently become a formal policy target: the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s first-ever delivery-sector survey found over 40% of workers had experienced it, well above cross-industry norms, prompting some local governments – Tokyo passed a customer-harassment prevention ordinance that took effect in April 2025 – to legislate against it, even though it carries no criminal penalty itself.
The thread’s real fault line isn’t “harassment is bad” (nobody argues otherwise) but whether the delivery model itself is the problem. One camp says delivery customers are uniquely entitled because scheduled time-slot delivery creates an expectation of a personal, on-demand service; the other insists drivers signed up as professionals and should absorb it as part of the job, a framing several posters reject by pointing to the industry’s chronic staff turnover.
What outside readers likely miss is that several posts (e.g., #4) are gesturing at a real legal distinction: Japan’s penal code already criminalizes “gyomu bogai” (forcible obstruction of business), so calling aggressive demands merely “harassment” can actually undersell conduct that’s separately prosecutable – a nuance the thread raises but never fully explains.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Newsspeed VIP) thread “Abuse Hurled at Delivery Drivers: “Useless,” “Idiot,” “Bring It Now” WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.”
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