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Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

theguardian.com

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Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#51

Post by triplesec »

chimeracoder wrote: post #45
mohi13 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this seems a dark side of democracy in a not well educated country. All the political parties do short term work just enough to win the next election and no one cares to plans long term. And when people are not educated they just don't get complicated perspective, all that understand is here and now leading to all short term band-aid solutions which are harmful for the long term.

> All the political parties do short term work just enough to win the next election and no one cares to plans long term. People just don't get complicated perspective, all that understand is here and now leading to all short term band-aid solutions which are harmful for the long term. You're describing all democracies, in every country. Education has nothing to do with it. It's a well-studied structural problem with…

This is clearly not true. Democracies often plan for the future, but only less so sometimes, such as when populism abounds and the democracy is too direct. Don't fall down the fallacy hole of 'authoritarianism like China or Singapore must be better.'

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#52

Post by jondubois »

ryandrake wrote: post #47
jondubois wrote: post #44

One of the first jobs I had was in a small call centre (doing cold calls). I had to read a script asking random people questions about their financial situation. I think it might have been a scam but I'm still not sure to this day; it just sounded like a standard insurance questionnaire but I don't know what they did with the answers that were collected. I got fired after 2 weeks because my conversion rates were not…

The rich are screwing over the poor, therefore it's morally acceptable to scam poor and middle class grandmothers out of their pensions? I guarantee it's not the wealthy elite that are being targeted by these scams.

They're wealthy compared to the perpetrators of the crime. If the 'victims' understood the value of their money, then they would never give it to anyone over the phone even if threatened with jail.

If someone wants to take my money, they'd probably have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#53

Post by DangerousPie »

reallymental wrote: post #7

edited: Some grammatical errors. Great read, and full of issues that are discussed on HN everyday. Also, not a new topic, the call centers have been on the decline for long, and for good reasons. > -today, young people from agricultural castes want to work in offices and not farms. I wondered what other options were open to them. > Poojary read it out to me in his best American accent, which he had perfected by the e…

> I'm South Indian, I didn't grow up there, but I can vouch for the condescending tone of Snigdha (the author of this piece). It's very much like how a condescending North Indian talks about a South Indian. And she's the 'educated' North Indian here talking to an 'un-educated' one. The condescension is palpable, and present throughout the piece. I have not read her other 2 pieces, but they're on similar topics, and I expect a similar tone. I'm not sure if it is a reflection of her distaste for the people in these highly questionable occupations, or just sprinkles of editorial hate.

Maybe I just didn't pick up on it, but as someone who doesn't know anything about the background of the author (nor about Indian stereotypes) this article didn't seem condescending to me at all. Are you sure you're not just projecting your own stereotypes about North/South Indians onto the author here?

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#54

Post by pjc50 »

yakt wrote: post #49

I find it strange that some recruiters close the hiring process only with telephonic interviews. May be they don't have any respect for their job and their organizations. It is not about the technique of hiring, it is the lazy unskilled people in the hiring team who don't care about the employee's career and the organizations growth. So they get what they deserve. May be if Facebook introduces a button for Add Employ…

When employee turnover is extremely high and the job itself is a scam, it's not about telephonic screening. It's about scamming as many people as possible into working for the organisation. Quantity over quality.

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#55

Post by zolthrowaway »

ryandrake wrote: post #46

I'm always shocked that these IRS scams ever work, let alone consistently enough to make them viable businesses. Someone with an Indian accent and really bad phone connection calls you up and tells you they are from the IRS and you need to pay them "taxes" with an Apple gift card, and people fall for this?? First off, the government will never contact you by phone. I thought everyone knew this but if not the FTC is h…

It's at least partially fear. Fear can get people to do crazy things. Combine this with the fact that many people are totally tech illiterate (think about some of the elderly who call their grandkids every time they need to check their email). I don't think it's very hard to see how something like this can happen.

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#56

Post by zacurry »

I once got caught up in one of these . I was young , poor and had failed in my engineering exams. I had no coding skills, but was hoping some company would pick me up based on my math skills and train me (that is what most MNCs in india like Infosys do). I was attending different tech job fairs, but would get screened out at the beginning itself because of my lack of degree. But then one company was fine with it and interviewded me but only after the HR round was over did they say that they were a BPO . They claimed to have tie up with a big MNC in india , and so off I went to join.

On my first day, I was given a script to learn and placed near a senior guy to listen in on his phone call to learn from him. The scam was simple, they had a website similar in name to yellowpages.com but not the real thing. They would call up small businesses (mom and pop stores) in the US and tell them their yellowpages listing was chargeable from that year, and if they don't pay 500$ , it would be removed. If someone other than the owner was attending the phone and said they don't want it , they would use scare tactics like ,"this would get your listing removed.Are you authorized to do that ?" etc. The main targets were old people and less technologically savvy ones I guess. Once someone agreed , the call was routed to another team some place else.

Long story short, I didn't go back after the first day- but my friend chose to stay back. Many of them who attended the interview did . I don't have contact with any of them , but now I wonder how many of them turned to bigger scams. None of them had joined there thinking they would be scamming people. At no point in the interview process did the company appear to be scam artists.

If anyone is wondering what I did after that, I borrowed some money, checked out the cheapest training course available near by - it turned out to be php (around 120$) and I landed a web dev role in 4 months.

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#57

Post by valuearb »

raverbashing wrote: post #32
valuearb wrote: post #12

Reminded me we hired an indian android developer (contractor) through a phone interview (in US). When “he” showed up for work, it wasn’t him. The contractor who actually showed up couldn’t answer the same questions.

Is this through an H1B? No wonder it's the mess as it's presented A video interview should be the minimum.

H1B hires have been among the best i've ever made. Smart, diligent, and hard working.

This was totally different.

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#58

Post by chimeracoder »

triplesec wrote: post #51
chimeracoder wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the political parties do short term work just enough to win the next election and no one cares to plans long term. People just don't get complicated perspective, all that understand is here and now leading to all short term band-aid solutions which are harmful for the long term. You're describing all democracies, in every country. Education has nothing to do with it. It's a well-studied structural problem with…

This is clearly not true. Democracies often plan for the future, but only less so sometimes, such as when populism abounds and the democracy is too direct. Don't fall down the fallacy hole of 'authoritarianism like China or Singapore must be better.'

> Don't fall down the fallacy hole of 'authoritarianism like China or Singapore must be better.'

I never said that.

And besides, "authoritarianism" isn't the opposite of democracy, as evidenced by authoritarian democracies.

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#59

Post by reaperducer »

yakt wrote: post #49

I find it strange that some recruiters close the hiring process only with telephonic interviews. May be they don't have any respect for their job and their organizations. It is not about the technique of hiring, it is the lazy unskilled people in the hiring team who don't care about the employee's career and the organizations growth. So they get what they deserve. May be if Facebook introduces a button for Add Employ…

Using social media in hiring decisions is illegal in some states.

Re: Scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market

#60

Post by walshemj »

reallymental wrote: post #29
EliRivers wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the British choose to chew their crap food What, you don't like curry? :) (cue "no true Scotsman" vis-a-vis UK curry!)

hah yes the infamous curry was most of my diet throughout my life in uni. That and pot noodles might be the leading cause of my future diabetic pancreas.

Well making curry your self does reduce the industrial amount of salt and MSG that a BIR pts in its food - apologies to the more authentic ones that are closer to real Indian Cuisine.
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