Heads-up for anyone apartment hunting in Tokyo.. those “real customer” ads are just paid actors (and it’s illegal)

E Housing has been carpet bombing my feed with these super polished “tenant testimonial” ads that just felt really off. I started wondering if these were even real tenants or just actors reading a script..

Spent maybe five minutes on Fiv⁤err and I already found three of the exact same faces offering spokesperson videos for around 20,000 yen each. Kinda hard not to assume the rest are bought too.

And before anyone says disclosure, yeah the videos have the little “sponsored” tag. That part is not the issue. The issue is what they’re actually saying. Stuff like “I signed last week and everything was seamles” or “they handled all the paperwork for me” which clearly makes it sound like they personally used the service.

Under the 2023 amendment to 景品表示法, (Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations) Article 5 3, you straight up cannot pay people to pretend they had a real customer experience. Even if you slap PR on the video. The Consumer Affairs Agency literally enforced this in 2024 with a cease and desist where a clinic tried the same thing.

So yeah if E Housing has to hire random strangers to lie about lease paperwork, that’s honestly pathetic and also illegal. There are plenty of legit agencies out there. Don't waste your time with one selling fiction as facts.

Stay skeptical!