Tweet of the Week #39: 7-Eleven Gets Roasted on Twitter for 7Pay Fail

Fast and convenient, mobile payment apps are taking over the world—Japan included. The mobile wallet market is challenging Japanese society’s love of coins and crisp banknotes. In 2018, 25% of smartphone owners had made at least one purchase using their mobile phone, a trend likely to boom in 2019.

But before Japan kneels before a cashless world, it needs a strong guarantee that citizens’ privacy and security aren’t being sacrificed at the altar of convenience.

Luckily, we have the recent 7Pay app fiasco to give us all a good wake-up call that mobile pay isn’t always the savior we need.

7Pay: 3 days, 900 clients hacked, ¥55 million stolen

Launched on July 1, 7-Eleven’s shiny new mobile-wallet app 7-Pay crashed as fast as you can say irrashaimase. 

In brief, hackers (but it could just as well have been your technology-challenged grandmother) were able to steal about ¥55 million in payments due to serious security vulnerabilities. The parent company Seven & i Holdings Co. even managed to anger the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (and those guys still use fax) for not following sufficient security guidelines. For a recap of this drama, warm-up some popcorn and read all about it here.

Twitter is very amused

Rumors that 7-Pay users were noticing unexpected transactions on their accounts quickly spread on social media.

…。 pic.twitter.com/WFlhjuKJ38

— 下流人生 、風俗日記 (@karyujinsei) July 6, 2019

「恥（は）ずかしいんだけどおにぎり１個（いっこ）もらえるから、チャージして登録（とうろく）して」

「そうしたら、40万円（よんまんえん）取（と）られちゃったバカだね」

This is embarrassing but I signed up and put some money [on 7-Pay] just to receive a free onigiri. Stupid, isn’t it? By doing this, I got ¥400,000 stolen [from my account]”

This very expensive freebie was then artfully summarized in this illustration tweeted by user @doppelscheisse.

7pay騒動を要約した画像が面白くて面白くて… pic.twitter.com/SFHnIvIxlv

— ✌✌ (@doppelscheisse) July 4, 2019

7pay騒動（そうどう）を要約（ようやく）した画像（がぞう）が面白（おもしろ）くて面白くて… = This really, really entertaining image perfectly sums the 7-Pay fiasco…

We can almost hear the laughter coming from 7-Eleven’s main competitors, together nicknamed the “Four Heavenly Kings”—a reference to four Buddhist gods—a.k.a. the top four convenience store brands in Japan.

ｾﾌﾞﾝ『グアアアアアア』(死亡)

ﾌｧﾐﾏ『セブンペイがやられたか…』

ﾛｰｿﾝ『ﾌﾌﾌ…奴はコンビニペイ四天王の中でも最弱…』

ﾐﾆｽﾄｯﾌﾟ『QR決済の面汚しよ…』

ｾ･ﾌ･ﾛ『ﾐﾆｽﾄｯﾌﾟﾍﾟｲ無いやん』 pic.twitter.com/xysTqiDqFV

— みらー (@MILLER_niko) July 4, 2019

ｾﾌﾞﾝ『グアアアアアア』(死亡（しぼう）)

ﾌｧﾐﾏ『セブンペイがやられたか…』

ﾛｰｿﾝ『ﾌﾌﾌ…奴（やつ）はコンビニペイ四天王（してんのう）の中（なか）でも最弱（さいじゃく）…』

ﾐﾆｽﾄｯﾌﾟ『QR決済（けっさい）の面（つら）汚（よご）しよ…』

ｾ･ﾌ･ﾛ『ﾐﾆｽﾄｯﾌﾟﾍﾟｲ無（な）いやん』

= 7-Eleven: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhh” (*Dies*)
Famima: “Oh… 7-Pay got killed…”
Lawson: “LOLZ… Well, their app was the weakest of the Four Kings’ apps”
Ministop: “Yeah, this is a disgrace to QR payments…”
7-Eleven/Famima/Lawson: “Uh, Ministop you don’t even have a payment app!”

How to use the kanji 最

While we can’t say for sure which convenience store offers the best mobile wallet app, we can definitely label 7-Pay as the weakest. You’ve probably spotted “最” a recurring kanji symbolizing “most” or “extreme” before this tweet.

Time to review a few pairs:

最弱（さいじゃく）  VS  最強（さいきょう）  = The weakest VS the strongest
最低（さいてい）  VS  最高（さいこう）  = The lowest VS the highest
最悪（さいあく）  VS 最善（さいぜん）  = The worst VS the best
最初（さいしょ）  VS 最後（さいご）  = The first VS the last
最短（さいたん）  VS 最長（さいちょ）  = The shortest VS the longest
最新（さいしん）  VS 最古（さいこ）  = The latest VS the oldest

Vocabulary

For more on learning Japanese

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