Fortress Japan

The kanji for 2010 was "sho"（暑）meaning hot. Looking back on the year, as far as this blog is concerned, the word of the year is probably "GEOS" owing to the closure of its schools in Australia and then its bankruptcy in Japan. On the other hand, if you worked for Nova when it collapsed in 2007, the fact that the trustees have started paying unpaid wages probably came as a pleasant surprise. For what it's worth, here's a recap of the issues covered on Let's Japan.

This got buried in my stack of stuff to do, but why not haul out the rotten corpse that is Fortress Japan for another round of flogging? To recap, the Consumer Affairs Agency shut down Fortress Japan in February for six months over its coercive methods of signing up new students. The agency's report [PDF] contains five case studies that illustrate how Fortress Japan did business.

It took the Consumer Affairs Agency long enough. From the Yomiuri Shimbun:

The Consumer Affairs Agency and the Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday ordered a Tokyo-based English-language conversation school chain operator to suspend operations due to its coercive method of selling its services to university students and others.

Remember Fortress Japan? Back in 2008, they were caught stealing a page or two out of Nova's playbook with some underhanded sales tactics. The Kansai Consumer's Support Organization (KCSO) sued, and in 2009, Fortress Japan promised to change its ways and behave.

Last August, I wrote about the lawsuit brought against Fortress Japan, which operates the eikaiwa Global Trinity, for the slimy manner in which they sold lesson packages to its customers. Their methods were straight out of the old NOVA playbook with pressure sales and deception being common practices.

Osaka-based NPO, Kansai Consumer's Support Organization, has sued English conversation school operator Fortress Japan for "undue solicitations."