Need a good excuse to skip town for the weekend? Maybe want to hide your profession? A doctor’s note to skip class? Well, if you live in Japan, there are perfect companies for you.

While companies lie all the time (which is conveniently called marketing), Alibi Companies will lie for you so that you can keep some deep secrets from those around you. Most of them are conveniently located in the red light districts of major cities so that ladies of the night can pick up fake pay stubs and name cards to disguise their true profession. Other services include answering phone calls and saying you’re out of the office, forwarding mail, and forging government documents (just as long as you don’t use it at government offices). I’m amazed the last one isn’t illegal in Japan (or if it is, isn‘t enforced). They will even attend weddings and funerals as your boss or co-worker as long as you give them some time notice.

In the west, there apparently was an Alibi Agency in England, but the website now leads to some cyber squatting site with links to private detectives ironically.

In the end I’m not sure what’s worse: paying people to lie for you, or a society that drives people to hide their secrets by hiring these companies.

Sample Alibi Company (Japanese).

Labels: service