The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification asked consumer centers around the nation to provide information about cases in which people sought help regarding damage claims related to the federation, the Consumer Affairs Agency has confirmed.
Agency Commissioner Yutaka Arai related the information to the press on Thursday.
"We believe these were organized efforts [by the federation]," Arai said at a regular press conference, calling for such conduct to stop. The federation is widely known as the Unification Church.
The agency made inquiries to municipalities by communicating with each prefecture and found that people claiming to be connected with the church had visited or made phone calls to local consumer centers. According to Arai, these people asked such things as to be notified when the centers received new consultations or to get information on consultations.
Such incidents were concentrated from late August to early September and continued until mid-September.
"We don't tell [anyone] the status of consultations at the individual consultation stage," Arai said. She also noted that no centers provided information to the church.
"We thought there would be a sharp increase in the number of consultations received at the centers, so people in charge visited the centers to apologize to them," said a spokesperson for the church when asked about Arai's remarks. "They didn't intend to obtain any information."
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