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The story
On the flea-market app Mercari, a series of nonsensical listings have appeared — a single 110-yen MONO eraser priced at 500,000 yen, and a two-pack going for roughly 10 million yen — becoming a hot topic on social media on the 11th. The product descriptions were filled with cryptic language, fueling speculation that these were fronts for illegal drug deals, and Mercari’s PR department has now issued a statement. On 5channel, voices suspecting money laundering or drug trafficking mixed with others laying out a detailed theory involving credit-card cash-advance scams, while criticism mounted over the platform’s lax monitoring that had let this slide.
◼ “MONO → mono (‘thing’) → butsu (slang for drugs)? Something like that?” — Many point to a possible coded term
On Mercari, the major flea-market app, an eraser has been listed at the extraordinary price of 500,000 yen, sending shockwaves across the internet. The item normally costs just 110 yen, yet some listings run as high as roughly 10 million yen for a set of two. The product descriptions are packed with baffling language, and some suspect illegal drug deals are taking place. So what’s actually going on? We asked Mercari’s PR department for their take.
The high-priced listings first caught social media’s attention on the 11th.
Source: imgur.com / original article here
What people said
They should just arrest them.
Re: #13
Wait, can you actually launder money this way?
Think some yakuza type would "sink" me for it? (slang for making someone disappear)
There's zero downside for the criminals, then.
That's because nobody's keeping tabs on what the yakuza are actually up to these days.
It's so chaotic it doesn't even make sense.
In reality they're probably actually shipping the pills too, for people who get off on overdosing.
This is just straight-up organized crime.
My impression is they only move once the government comes down on them.
Until then, every sale means fee revenue, so their stance is basically "milk it for all it's worth while you can."
So we should probably assume there's a reason this kind of thing gets left alone.
Maybe the site's actually useful for police to flush out organized crime (?) — since all they'd have to do is keep watch here.
Nope, they're cozy with the police.
I don't think that's it.
https://jp.mercari.com/item/m87606584650
That's a special-grade cursed object right there. (riffing on the Jujutsu Kaisen term for top-tier cursed items)
At this point the platform's basically just a breeding ground for crime, isn't it?
It's also a huge favorite among scalpers.
This is just a basic credit-card "shopping-limit cash-out" scheme.
Step 1: List something worthless at a high price (nobody actually buys it)
↓
Step 2: Buy it yourself using a separate account, paying by credit card
It also works on other people — find customers advertising "20% fee, cash out your card's shopping limit," then have them buy your listing on Mercari.
↓
100,000 yen
↓
Mercari fee: 10,000 yen
↓
Pay the customer: 80,000 yen
↓
Your profit: 10,000 yen (minus a few hundred yen to wire them the 80,000) — roughly 9,000-something yen in profit
1. Find customers via social media etc. advertising "20% fee, cash out your shopping limit"
2. Have them buy your Mercari listing
3. For 100,000 yen, wire 80,000 yen back to them
No storefront needed — an easy side hustle.
Exactly this.
It's been around forever — used to see it all the time on Yahoo Auctions.
Re: #121
They covered this on a daytime talk show yesterday — it's actually drugs.
If that's really it, though, doesn't it fail to explain why multiple people specifically keep choosing MONO erasers — gram-pricing angle and all — as their high-ticket item?
But isn't it scary if you just ship the eraser and the buyer loses it?
Even with anonymous shipping, if your identity somehow leaks out, you're done.
The police aren't exactly idle either — they could just tag along when the eraser gets shipped.
https://jp.mercari.com/item/m82311455998
And it's sold!
Ha, it's real.
The comments section is great too —
"Why's everyone trolling this?
It'd be funny if some junkie bought it and an actual eraser showed up."
Exactly this — as long as they get their cut, crime's apparently A-OK.
Same goes for Yahoo Auctions and Yahoo Flea Market.
Background and Key Points of This Story
“Cashing out a credit card’s shopping limit” is a scheme where a seller buys their own overpriced, unwanted item (here, an eraser) through a separate account via credit card, then collects a fee and hands over cash to a client — an illegal fundraising method known since the Yahoo Auctions era. This theory emerged as the leading explanation on the thread, but it doesn’t account for why the conspicuous “MONO eraser” specifically keeps getting chosen, and the persistent reading of “MONO” as slang for “mono” (thing) → “butsu” (drugs) keeps drug-dealing suspicions alive. Mercari has only issued a PR comment, and no investigative authority has confirmed drugs or money laundering as fact. Money laundering, drug dealing, and credit-card cash-outs are all speculation from the thread, and it’s worth noting that the information in this article alone can’t pin down which, if any, is actually happening.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Flash+) thread “110-Yen Eraser Listed for 500,000 Yen: Mercari’s Mystery Overpriced Listings Spark Suspicions of Illegal Drug Deals — Mercari Responds.”
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