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

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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

#261

Post by jeltz »

imglorp wrote: post #218
jeltz wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I do not see how stopping the spoofing (which I am all for doing) would be anything but a minor inconvenience for them.

I think the subtext is that given valid caller IDs, then block lists can be made. The US FTC might manage them like it does the do-not-call lists, or the perhaps the US Attorney's office, after some criminal complaints. Ideally, the telco would implement these block lists, but also ideally, they could be traded around like web ad block lists for individuals to load on their phones. I think we all know scam calls are…

> I think we all know scam calls are a serious source of revenue for carriers, so they will need to be led to this conclusion by force.

Why would they be a major revenue source? The carriers make their money from normal users, not dodgy call centers.

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

#262

Post by Nextgrid »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #196
photochemsyn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operating in collusion with American carriers who don't try to identify and block these operations because they get paid on a per-call basis?

I suppose it's not that easy. They can use international VOIP providers to route their calls, maybe even run their own, rotating the numbers they use and disguising the actual origin. If that wouldn't work you could probably hire people in other countries to put some agent software on something like a smart phone and use these.

It is that easy. Regardless of what convoluted setup they're using, at some point those calls need to get to the US-based carrier. That is where they can be blocked. The carrier can simply say "we'll stop peering with you if more than 10% of your calls are spam" and the upstream carriers will have to clean up their act (better screen their customers or implement similar terms) or be cut off from being able to reach the US.

The problem is that the US carrier gets paid for terminating the call, regardless of whether it's spam or not. Why would they kill the golden goose?

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

#263

Post by temp20221227 »

sys32768 wrote: post #31

I always wait on the line until I get an actual person and then I give them a satisfyingly long raspberry. I think it would be more effective if I learned a Hindi curse.

I have to preface this with saying that most Indians are decent people, and do not work at call centers scamming Americans. Within India, they deal with this type of phone crap on a level beyond what we do. There are some shady loan companies there that require you to upload your contacts list and harass every one of your contacts if you miss a payment.

Anyways, I'm all for insulting a call center scammer, and a rude comment about their mom, especially comparing them to a dog or something, will probably piss them off. Then if they overreact back, threaten to email their boss the call recording.

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

#264

Post by AussieWog93 »

AdityaSanthosh wrote: post #174
weakfortress wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anti-Indian rhetoric"? The scams literally originate in India, and are masterminded by Indians. Further, the police are often paid off and rarely do anything about it. When enough fuss is caused about one or two they stop them and then another two crop up somewhere else. If you study the history of organized crime, especially in America, this mirrors the Italian mob once they got control of the police. This is organ…

[flagged]

Just live abroad for a bit and you'll notice a trend.

Here in Australia, I get maybe 4-5 Indian scam calls a week, compared to maybe one per year originating from anywhere else (Philippines, Eastern Europe).

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

#266

Post by ocdtrekkie »

pnw wrote: post #227
jacquesm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telco's could put a stop to this if they really wanted to. Start with disabling number spoofing for international calls, if the number presented isn't in the country of origin then reject the connection request. Another choke point is the gift card system.

The Feds already started on this with STIR/SHAKEN protocol which has been mandated by the FCC for most carriers in recent years. However, just like email spam, stopping spoofed calls is harder in practice than in theory.

It can be very easy, depending on your comfort with breaking existing systems. Disable all inbound international calling and you no longer have a problem. That would remove 99% of spam and would have zero negative impact to 99% of individuals who receive calls.

Of course, businesses with a lot of money care about use cases in that last 1%.

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

#267

Post by pjdemers »

Wasn't there a guy who was running an IRS scam who was caught, tried and convicted and will spend the rest of his life in a US supermax prison? And his children, who lived in the US, were stripped of their citizenship and deported. The universities where his children attended were threatened with receiving stolen property and forced to pay all tuition and fees back to the IRS. And of course their degrees were revoked.

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

#268

Post by dragonwriter »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #243
CoastalCoder wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These operations have to be sponsored by the state at this scale. I'd argue that one such state is the U.S. Congress could pretty trivially order that carriers give each customer a choice about what kinds of spoofed / unreliable-origin calls to let through. E.g.: For calls originating (inside | outside) the U.S.: (allow-all | allow-whitelist-only | allow-only-when-presenting-callee-issued-passcode | etc.) But Congr…

> But Congress doesn't do this. My own thesis, is because politicians, and PACs, use robocalls extensively. They don't want you blocking their junk calls.

> My own thesis, is because politicians, and PACs, use robocalls extensively.

I doubt it, its easy enough for them to just exempt their own calls (which, incidentally, they do from existing Do-Not-Call rules.)

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

#269

Post by mderazon »

briffle wrote: post #231
jacquesm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telco's could put a stop to this if they really wanted to. Start with disabling number spoofing for international calls, if the number presented isn't in the country of origin then reject the connection request. Another choke point is the gift card system.

I thought this was the whole point of STIR/SHAKEN protocol the FCC requires, but maybe there are still some providers that are exempted? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN

Is it also for SMS ? It's 99% spam and 1% 2FA codes to log in to stupid banks.

No way to selectively block SMS on phones (at least natively). Only reason I don't disable it completely is due to the 1 percent

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

#270

Post by dalbasal »

jacquesm wrote: post #105
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…

Telco's could put a stop to this if they really wanted to. Start with disabling number spoofing for international calls, if the number presented isn't in the country of origin then reject the connection request. Another choke point is the gift card system.

Yes and uhh.

At some point, the way to fight crime is to fight crime. It's not that hard to find and prosecute most call centre scammers.

A lot of these scammers would not do it if there was risk. They're not often hardened criminals.

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