Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#161

Post by silisili » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

cute_boi wrote: post #84

These days whenever I hear Indian voice, I just reject call. They way they target grandparents is surreal. One day they told my my friends parents that their children is in accident and they have to pay in gift cards. It is so distressing to elderly people. US must take strict actions and call out India publicly. Elderly people are weak, education isn't going to solve the scam problem. Scammers must be punished harsl…

As bad as it is to say, I mostly do the same.

You'd think India would be on top of this and come down hard. If folks just start associating Indian accents as 'scammers', businesses abroad that currently rely on outsourcing support and other services are going to eventually have to pull out. You can't run effective customer support if the customer assumes you're a bad actor just because of your voice and hangs up.

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#162

Post by 2143 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

I fully agree that these scammers must be prosecuted.

Just a couple of things:

1. I don't think there's any official conspiracy by Indians in general to screw over Americans.

So kindly don't put out poorly thought out responses calling for blanket ban on Indians or things like that.

2. Indians themselves get scammed by these scammers.

That's all. Carry on.

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#163

Post by miohtama » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

The title is incorrect. If you read the original article it is clear that $10B is all US online fraud together, not Indian call centers as Deccandherald.com writes

> The trend is persisting, with total money lost by Americans in all internet/call centre-related frauds in the last 11 months having been estimated at $10.2 billion, an increase of 47% against last year’s $6.9 billion.

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#164

Post by hnuser847 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

hikingsimulator wrote: post #100

mrsuprawsm wrote: post #78

It's mind-boggling that the United States allows this kind of thing to happen. In the EU I get maybe one spam call every couple of months. From the stories you hear from Americans on HN, Americans get multiple spam/scam calls a day, and the vast majority of their inbound calls are spam/scams. What is going wrong in the US that isn't going wrong in the EU? Language barrier? Regulatory capture?

Lucky you. I usually get one or two spam calls a day in Europe (France/Germany) but they are marked as spam. Bless the people keeping that red list up to date. This thread makes me wonder if Americans have such info (whether a call is a likely spam) automatically pop up when receiving text or calls.

> This thread makes me wonder if Americans have such info (whether a call is a likely spam) automatically pop up when receiving text or calls.

We do have that, but it probably depends on the carrier and the type of phone you have. On my iPhone with Verizon, there's a setting to "Silence Junk Callers", in which "calls identified by Verizon as potential spam or fraud will be silenced, automatically sent to voicemail, and displayed on the Recents list."

It's not perfect, though, and I still get a ton of spam calls. As a rule I almost never answer the phone if I don't recognize the number.

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#165

Post by weakfortress » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #107

weakfortress wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police in India are paid off to allow this. Indeed, the best solution would be economic sanctions on India until it is resolved.

That sounds an attack on the people of India for something a private company is doing. I also don't think the US has jurisdiction there, so I'd much rather see an investment in education or public infrastructure to help with it. If this was similar to the Russia stuff where the goal was to affect the election and was sponsored by the govt then sanctions kinda make sense, but this is a problem of international communi…

[flagged]

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#166

Post by VWWHFSfQ » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #39

jjeaff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10 Billion is not just a few scammers. That is an unfathomably huge industry.

I can certainly fathom $10 billion. But I take your point; my point was that, even if there are a million criminals involved in telephone fraud in India, it's a tiny fraction of overall (and primarily legitimate!) telephone traffic. Interfering with over a billion peoples' ability to talk with their loved ones requires existential damage to our country, not frustrating crime that's best resolved with international co…

I think Americans feel differently about a domestic issue of Americans stealing from Americans than they do about a developing country scamming elderly Americans out of their social security income.

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#167

Post by frontman1988 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

cute_boi wrote: post #84

These days whenever I hear Indian voice, I just reject call. They way they target grandparents is surreal. One day they told my my friends parents that their children is in accident and they have to pay in gift cards. It is so distressing to elderly people. US must take strict actions and call out India publicly. Elderly people are weak, education isn't going to solve the scam problem. Scammers must be punished harsl…

https://www.sanas.ai/

Be warned. AI accent changers will eliminate that line of defense as well.

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#168

Post by bbbbb5 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #149

arcturus17 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, how would this stop phone scams?

Nothing can stop that. The goal is lowering the victims / profit. How to do that, that's the question. It comes to no surprise to me poor countries (with bribed police force) try to scam rich ones.

How would this affect the profits?

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#169

Post by e_i_pi_2 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

_Algernon_ wrote: post #146

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds an attack on the people of India for something a private company is doing. I also don't think the US has jurisdiction there, so I'd much rather see an investment in education or public infrastructure to help with it. If this was similar to the Russia stuff where the goal was to affect the election and was sponsored by the govt then sanctions kinda make sense, but this is a problem of international communi…

Why should the US invest in Indian education and infrastructure when India, by its inaction, is responsible for such parasitism against US citizens? It sucks that sanctions would cause collateral damage, but India is a democracy. No voting citizen is absolved of guilt.

I'm saying we should invest in educating people in the US to stop falling for the scams, or for infrastructure to stop in here in the US.

As another comment notes, the US is responsible for plenty of parasitism (MLMs, ponzi, crypto) that is likely a higher total value, but I suspect most citizens would feel it's unfair to sanction them because of some bad actors in the economy

Re: Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report

#170

Post by Jcampuzano2 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

ridicter wrote: post #17

It's gotten bad enough that if someone with an Indian accent is calling me and it sounds like it's from a call center, I hang up immediately.

I honestly just literally never answer the phone unless its already in my contacts. If it's so important, they'll leave a message.

If the message mentions anything about stupid stuff like tax fraud/social security number its just immediately deleted, you'd 99% of the time receive official mail for anything about these items.