Japanese man arrested ‘for making 24,000 complaint calls to phone company’

‘He also repeatedly hung up his calls immediately after placing them,’ said police

Akitoshi Okamoto, 71, was reportedly angry because his phone was unable to pick up radio broadcasts (ANNnewsCH)

An elderly Japanese man has been arrested after calling a phone company 24,000 times to file complaints about his contract.

Akitoshi Okamoto, 71, was taken into custody after making thousands of toll-free calls over an eight-day period to the customer service section of KDDI, a major telephone operator in the country.

A police spokesman told AFP news agency: “He demanded that KDDI staff come to him to apologise for violating his contract. He also repeatedly hung up his calls immediately after placing them.”

Mr Okamoto is also suspected of using public payphones in Tokyo to make thousands more calls to complain about the company and insult customer service staff.

He was reportedly angry with the phone company because his phone was unable to pick up radio broadcasts.

The firm was initially reluctant to press charges, but the repeated calls were making it impossible to assist other customers, Japan Today reported.

The spokesman said he was arrested on suspicion of “fraudulent obstruction of business”, a charge that makes it illegal to interfere with someone’s ability to run their business.

Mr Okamoto denied the charges and told police that he was “the victim”.