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Did you ever play a video game, at like one of those
traveling carnivals, where it's like,
they set up a tent and they throw an arcade up there
and then you walk up, and you-
you're going to play one of those shoot-em-up games or whatever,
the FBI thing comes on there
and it says, "Attention! If you are playing"
"this arcade game anywhere but Japan,"
"you are committing a crime!"
>> What‽ >> Have you not noticed that?
>> I would've run!
>> Because they have them licensed for different regions.
Same thing with like Dance Dance Revolution machines,
because all the good ones they import from Japan,
but it's like, "You are committing a crime!"
And I'm like, "Dancing's not a crime."
>> Are you like Footloose?
Were you Kevin Baconing?
Do you like fight dance, like in a warehouse with DDR?
>> Hysteria!
[ warbling guitar ] ♪ [ "Rosewood" by harris cole x arbour ] ♪
>> robot voice: Bypassing geo-restrictions to buy stuff.
>> All right, we are here with Shannon Morse
of Hack5 and TekThing.
Shannon, thanks for joining us.
>> Thanks for having me. >> Shannon, you're the best person on the planet.
All right, so the whole idea we wanted
to play with is getting stuff
that you're not allowed to get.
Whether it's region locked,
>> Yes. whether it's geographically improbable.
There's a lot of examples that you are
not able to buy stuff.
>> A lot of us don't realize that in the age of information,
you think that everything is available to you
all the time, and largely,
that's true but there are still things >> Shannon: Yeah.
that are region locked that you are only allowed
to get in Japan or only allowed to get it >> Shannon: Exactly.
in its country of origin,
but you've got a way around that.
>> I've got a work-around that I figured out
and I'm here to share it with you two
because I am an otaku.
>> That's a medical condition, right?
[ laughter ] >> Jason: You're going to need to explain that.
>> It's a derisive term applied to Westerners
that are in love with Japanese culture?
>> Pretty much, especially if you're like
an anime and manga fan.
>> Is there a difference between an otaku and a weeaboo?
>> Yes, there is. >> Oh!
>> Is there a difference between anime and manga?
>> Yeah. [ laughter ]
>> Well duh. >> I didn't know that.
>> You didn't know? >> No I just saw, like, Akira
for the first time a few months ago.
>> Wait, really? >> Well, cartoons and comics.
>> Oh, one is cartoons, one is comics?
>> Yeah, exactly. >> Got it.
>> So, what's the difference between a weeaboo
and a otaku then?
>> One is more cultured and respected,
the other is not.
[ dramatic impact ] >> Got it, one is more derisive a term
than the other, got it.
>> So, give us an example of something
that you can't buy in America, direct from Japan
and how you get around it.
>> There's a lot of things that you can only buy
if you have like a Japanese address
and one of the things that I've run into
is buying Japanese jewelry.
There's a lot of different companies
that do Sailor Moon collaborations
and I really want that Sailor Moon
jewelry collaboration you know, I want the whole thing. >> Sure.
So, I ended up having to figure out how to give
myself a shipping address in Japan.
Which, in turn, would ship stuff to me here in America
because I can't necessarily go to Japan all the time.
>> So, I guess the analog would be, in a perfect world,
you would have a friend who happens to live in Tokyo,
>> Yeah. who would order on your behalf and then send it to you,
and you'd PayPal them cash or whatever.
>> Exactly. >> Setup some kind of middle person.
>> There's three different options that you can normally
run into if you want to buy something overseas.
You have a really nice friend who will by stuff for you
and then ship it to you.
That can be kind of expensive.
You have a personal shopper,
who will probably charge you a percentage
and then go out a physically buy things for you,
and then ship it to you.
Also expensive.
Alternatively, you can get a forwarding address
in whatever country you want to buy stuff from
and then they will have a warehouse
and they will ship stuff to you for a cheaper price.
>> So your talking about like a VPN for physical stuff.
>> It's like a real life VPN!
>> This is great and I'm going to guess the second part
is you probably use a VPN >> Yep!
and a physical VPN.
>> That's right, I do.
>> And this is all just above board.
You're just ordering like, commercially available
but region locked jewelry. >> Shannon: Yeah!
This isn't like you're smuggling some sort
of tiara from the Shogunate or anything like that.
>> Well not yet. [ laughter ]
>> We're working up to it.
It's the early days. >> Jason: Okay.
>> Okay so what do you want to do to set up one
of these virtual addresses and how expensive is it?
>> The first thing you need to do is find
a company that you trust
and that you really want to work with.
So I decided to go with this company called Tenso Japan
because I was doing a whole bunch
of price comparison shopping between all these different
forwarding address shippers, if you will.
>> How do you start searching for that?
You search for... "I want to buy--"
>> You just look up "forwarding address, country of interest."
>> Okay. So for me it was forwarding address Japan
and I got a slew of options
but they were rather expensive.
So I decided to go with this one called Tenso
which charges around 10 to 20 bucks per package
that they send you.
>> And so you can do this for not just Japan,
but for whatever target country that you're shopping from.
>> Yeah absolutely, for example there is a whole bunch
of these forwarding addresses in America too.
For international shoppers.
>> But you have to make sure how trustworthy they are.
Because some of these can be scams I imagine.
>> Yeah you definitely have to read some reviews,
and make sure that they are safely packaging your things
and that they offer some kind of insurance.
>> Okay, so you find a website, you go ahead and sign up,
you commit to 15, 20 bucks per package or whatever.
Then I assume you get a VPN of some variety,
they're basically magic internet tunnels
that make it look like you're in the local country >> Right.
and you what, you just act like this is your home address?
>> Pretty much, yeah.
♪ [ "taipei rosebuds" by mommy & snowglobe ] ♪ So for example, I love this website
called Q-Pot and Q-Pot Cafe.
Unfortunately, their website normally redirects you
to the international shop whenever you login from the US.
So I logged in through my VPN in japan
so that I was automatically redirected
to their domestic Japanese shop instead.
So I could purchase a whole bunch of jewelry
from this Q-Pot Japan website and have it shipped
to my forwarding address which is over
at Tenso Japan, their warehouse.
>> So do you have to worry about
if you're using credit cards,
you know there's that whole, your home address
is not the address that you're shipping to.
Is that a case where you want to use a third party
like PayPal or something?
>> PayPal, yeah PayPal is the answer for that.
Especially if they look at your shipping
and your address for your credit card
and they deny the payment which can happen,
Then PayPal would be a really good answer.
>> All right, so what have you bought?
Spill it. >> Yeah, let's see.
>> You want to see what I've bought? >> Yeah!
Okay so... [ laughter ]
>> Jason: Ice cream moon insulation bag.
>> So don't look at the prices. >> Are you going to space‽
>> Ice cream moon is the least of the popular Sailor Moons.
>> Is that actual Sailor Moon character?
>> Ignore the prices since that ends up being around $1,000.
>> Oh my goodness!
Pretty guardian ice cream hair rubber moon.
What is with the ice cream stuff?
>> Oh that's a scrunchie for my hair.
>> Okay, of course.
>> Jason: Phantom Silver Crystal Part Du Flui Necklace.
>> Yes. Okay, Usagi Dream Sugar Cookie Bag Charm.
Do these mean anything or is it just like word salad?
>> Somebody has victorious aphasia where just nonsense comes out.
>> I'll be honest, if you were an Otaku, you would understand.
>> I would totally get all of this.
>> None of these are available in the United States
on the international version?
>> No, they're not.
If you want to buy them from a United States seller
or if you want to get them shipped normally without
a address in Japan, you would have to like go to eBay
and then you would be charged twice as much.
>> Really? >> I was just about to say that.
I bet we could look up one of these on American eBay
>> Yeah! and find just some outrageous pricing.
>> Do you want to do it? >> That tells me there is a business opportunity here.
You could be an importer.
>> Modern Rogue is over!
We're going to start selling Sailor Moon necklaces man!
Right here!
>> Get ready for flashlight turbo snail phase
cathartic revelation-- >> Jason: I got to write this down.
bracelets. [ laughter ]
Snail phase revelation bracelets?
Now available on scamstuff.com. >> Shannon: What‽
[ laughing ]
>> Shannon: Here's a perfect example for you.
>> Jason: Okay, Eternal Tear Necklace.
>> So Eternal Tear Necklace, which is supposed
to say Eternal Tiara Necklace but Chrome didn't--
>> Just crying constantly. >> Decipher it correctly.
>> These are my eternal tears?
>> This one's normally, the USD conversion is about $200. >> Jason: Okay.
>> Shannon: If I go over here and look up the same thing, it's $550. [ Brian gasps ]
>> We're going to make so much money!
Economists have a term for this it's called arbitrage.
It means a genuine inefficiency in the market
that you can take advantage of by being
the first mover in here.
You're welcome future millionaires.
>> Yeah, and one of those if you go back,
so that one is from like Kingdom Hearts or something.
And that's the Light of Elendil.
It's like you can get like, magical things from
this other kingdom far away.
♪ [ "Nomatter" by Moose Dawa ] ♪ >> What do you consider your biggest score
you've ever made using this method?
>> So that would probably be Studio Ghibli tickets
that I purchased straight from the supplier in Japan.
>> Do they do like a tour?
>> You get on the cat bus and everything.
>> There's a museum in Tokyo.
Studio Ghibli museum in Tokyo
that you can go to and you can spend hours there
and it's amazing.
It's a great experience.
Unfortunately, though, they only give out about 100 tickets
to international sellers
so it's very hard to purchase a ticket.
>> Brian: Nice. And, they only allow them on the 10th of the month,
every single month for... an allotted amount of tickets
three months ahead of time.
>> You have to wait until the moon is full
and then a wood spirit comes foreword
>> Shannon: Basically. and you sing a little song and then they give you the tickets.
>> Basically, so I was really upset
because I had no clue how to get these tickets
because they were always sold out internationally.
What am I going to do?
Well, I will use my VPN to pretend that I'm in Japan,
so that I can purchase the tickets from the actual supplier,
in Japan, as opposed to going through
an international seller.
So if I wanted to buy them in America,
and there were some available, I totally could.
I could go to JTB and then go to the Ghibli Museum Mitaka
ordering website and pay 15 bucks for a ticket.
However if I'm bringing six people with me,
I don't want to $15 on a ticket when I could go
to the Japanese website and spend 1000 Yen on a ticket.
That's about nine bucks USD.
>> So get your conversion rates right, make sure
that you're doing your math correctly,
otherwise you could end up on the losing end,
like real bad. >> Very true.
>> This is perfect because this is a case
where it's a non-physical good.
Because I assume it's just will-call.
I guess you could use the address.
>> You don't have to have the forwarding address.
They do ask you for a postal code
and then they will check it against your VPN
and make sure you're actually in Japan
or else the website errors out.
I ran into this.
>> This is the brilliant part.
The idea of-of not-- >> They were blocking US addresses
from actually being able to access the website.
>> It's as though you're a hacker.
That's amazing. [ laughter ]
>> Yes, so after I purchased the tickets on the website
and I used PayPal again for this too,
I ended up going into a convenience store in Tokyo
and I printed out my tickets right there.
>> So using this technique,
you can get stuff that you're not supposed to get,
you can get better prices, but most importantly,
when you're actually in the country,
you get to get pricing as though you're a local, >> Yep.
even though you're not.
Dude, that's a three for one.
This is really good stuff.
>> When you show up with the Japanese purchase ticket,
but it's clear that you're not a local,
do they just...
♪♪
whisper and then maybe send security after you?
>> It does help if you have a friend that's Japanese with you
whenever you're going to the convenience store
to pick up your tickets,
because they can just talk in Japanese and be like,
"Hey, can we get these tickets?"
"Here's the receipt." >> And you're like,
"I'm just a cool person who doesn't talk a lot."
All right, where can people see so much more
of these amazing hacks and tips?
>> So, I'm actually going to do a whole walkthrough
about how to buy the Studio Ghibli Museum tickets
over on my website which is youtube.com/shannonmorse. >> Brian: Awesome.
So if you go over there around the 10th of the month
is when I'm going to buy the tickets
and I'll show you exactly how to go through
the whole walkthrough. >> And that's M-O-R-S-E, right?
>> Yup, that's right, just like morse code.
>> But you are also available everywhere else like we said,
on Hak5, and TekThing, >> Yep.
anything else you want to promote?
>> @SNUBS on twitter, S-N-U-B-S.
>> There you go. >> Dude, thank you so much Shannon,
this is awesome. >> Thank you!
>> Dude, an episode on international secret shopping,
♪ [ "Move your Hips" by Bassti ] ♪ what perfect fit for our sponsor, NordVPN.
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>> Yes I do. [ laughing ]
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>> 75% discount for three years.
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>> Yeah, use that military grade encryption,
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>> Nobody has to know that you love Hello Kitty.
>> Nothing wrong with that.
>> You love Hello Kitty.
She's always saying hello,
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♪♪
[ laughter ] It's what she does.
>> You made it weirder.
So easily you do that! >> nordvpn.com/rogue
— CC BY REV — * MODIFIED BY BIZARRE MAGIC * [branding furnace hissing]
>> What did you say, put it in stealth mode?
>> Stun. >> Stun!
>> Phasers on stun.
>> It's a Star Wars thing.
>> No it is not. >> Star Trek!
[ Brian laughing ]
>> Man I fell for that, because I was like no it i--hang on.
[ laughter ]
>> We're not friends anymore.
>> That was great, that was great.