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The story
An SPA! article describing people who were forcibly cancelled from their phone contracts after just one month of unpaid bills, lost their phone number as a result, and found their job search so derailed that they ended up living on the street, was picked up on 5ch’s News Express+ board. The thread filled up with questions about the order of operations — why cancel your phone before falling behind on rent and moving into an internet cafe? — along with pointers that budget SIM options like povo or Nihon Tsushin (Japan Communications) could have served as a fallback, explanations of how a forced cancellation gets you blacklisted and makes signing a new contract nearly impossible, and even the reality of local governments turning welfare applicants away at the door.
Posted 10/22 (Thu) 8:54 AM
SPA!
In modern life, a smartphone is indispensable. Yet there are people who, after a forced contract cancellation triggered by unpaid bills, find it impossible to secure housing or work and end up homeless. We trace the harsh reality of this “telecom poverty” — a trap that men from the lost-decade job generation are especially prone to falling into — and look at ways people are trying to climb back out.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
What kind of thought process is that?
That's the part I don't get. I guess if you fall too far behind on rent you get blacklisted and can't rent again?
Same here. If anything, landlords have a hard time evicting you even if you're behind on rent, so you might as well just stay put.
The first move was already wrong.
Funny, I was literally about to type that exact same thing.
Once you get hit with a forced cancellation you get blacklisted, so you can't sign a new phone contract.
Though there are support services out there for people in that situation.
Some internet cafes actually advertise that you can use the cafe's address as your own.
You need a credit card for that, right? No way a guy like this has one.
There should be Paidy (a buy-now-pay-later service), so you don't need a credit card.
Even if there is, just sign up with a different one.
And if blacklist data is circulating around, that's not simply a nonpayment problem anymore.
Not paying off your phone installment loan — that makes you a red-flag customer for the carrier too.
Starting from the bottom means you have to try harder than average just to climb back up.
Even with a certification, if you're a mid-career hire with no practical experience, nobody's going to hire you.
Your thinking is way too naive.
Are you some kind of time traveler or something? (slang for someone stuck in the past)
>Took on more debt to pay for medical treatment
What about the High-Cost Medical Expense Benefit system?
The cap on the High-Cost Medical Expense Benefit is actually pretty high, though.
If you're working a normal job, you're often not even eligible.
True, but there are still local governments that run the "turn them away at the door" tactic.
Technically you should be able to get welfare (namapo) even with no fixed address, though.
I can't tell if that's really what the person said
or just the reporter's own creative writing.
Stuff like this is just entertainment lol
vs. living on welfare in Tokyo —
the latter looks more appealing.
Why would that be appealing to you specifically?
It's because Tokyo has the things you want.
Which means that for someone who doesn't want anything Tokyo has,
Tokyo isn't an appealing place at all.
Hiroyuki: "That's just your desiccant packet, isn't it" (a pun on his catchphrase "that's just your opinion, isn't it" — kansou/opinion vs. kansouzai/desiccant)
153: "You mean the quicklime kind?" (riffing on the "do not eat" quicklime desiccant packets)
Tokyo's just a dumping ground for drifters — that's the only reason anyone can scrape by there.
And fool that I am, I've left it unplugged from the phone line for almost ten years.
Just cancel it, it's easy. I did mine last year.
↑
Now that's brainwashing.
Well, there's definitely a sense that employers don't want to hire someone who can't even hold onto a smartphone.
Unless you've got a landline at home, I guess.
You think he could actually sign up for that?
Even with a My Number card, if you have no way to get online, the online application is dead in the water right there.
And even if you could get online, with no fixed address, if your phone doesn't support eSIM you're stuck too.
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
The reason a forced phone cancellation casts such a long shadow is that unpaid device installment loans, among other things, get recorded on a shared credit blacklist used by all the major carriers (the so-called “phone blacklist”), which blocks you from signing any new contract for a set period of time. Many in the thread, unaware of this system, questioned the order of events — why would someone give up their phone before anything else? At the same time, there was skepticism about the article’s account itself, with some suggesting it might be the reporter’s own embellishment, which grew into a broader debate about the gap between media portrayals of the lost-decade generation’s downfall and the reality on the ground. The “turning people away at the door” tactic some local governments use to discourage welfare applications also came up, though the thread didn’t fully register the fact that, institutionally, you can apply for welfare even with no fixed address.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “【📱】From “Just One Month Behind on Phone Bills” to Homelessness: The Terror of “Telecom Poverty,” Where Losing Your Number Alone Can Doom Your Job Search.”
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