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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

#291

Post by bilalnpe »

DrearyWoods wrote: post #133
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.

This is my advice to my parents now, who sometimes get anxious over the disgracefully manipulative bait these scammers deploy. "If it's an Indian, hang up." If there's a legitimate need to get in touch, they will find another way. My (naive) hope is that this might also discourage offshoring and/or reward companies employing Americans, if enough people do likewise.

>My (naive) hope is that this might also discourage offshoring and/or reward companies employing Americans, if enough people do likewise.

I doubt that. Instead they'll probably start using a service like https://www.respeecher.com/

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

#292

Post by rootusrootus »

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.

Yes, of course we do. Verizon and T-Mobile, at the very least, mark calls as "likely spam" reliably. Can't speak for any carriers as I've not been a customer of theirs for some time.

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

#293

Post by AussieWog93 »

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 think it would be more effective if I learned a Hindi curse.

When asked, just tell them your name is "Ben Chod". Gets em every time.

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

#294

Post by Nextgrid »

hijinks wrote: post #18

my wife almost fell for one because she needed to do an amazon return. She Googled "Amazon support phone number" on her phone and the 2nd link had a 800 number but it was a site either legit or setup by scammers to review the phone number. She called it and figured someone was funny when they asked her to install an app on her phone.

Let me guess, was that search result an ad? Yet another reason to block them.

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

#295

Post by jeltz »

jacquesm wrote: post #204
bbbbb5 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that in some countries these scams are far more prevalent than in others, they'll go for the low hanging fruit first just like any other business The reason for this is language barriers, it's not some countries doing things better than others. > Shipping a SIM box would already be much more work than just changing a number in a database They don't even actually need to ship one, there are thousands of them op…

Yes, but that would at least put them at the same level as burner phones with a physical presence required in the target country (or close to it). Anyway, since you are willing to shoot down each and every suggestion in this thread short of rolling over and accepting the damage how would you tackle it?

Most of these scammers already have physical presence in the US. I feel the solution is probably to be found in more policing and prosecution than in creating tiny obstacles.

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

#296

Post by dreamcompiler »

dxbydt wrote: post #232

Until last year, I was completely unaware of this problem. I made a stupid, stupid mistake - registered a .us TLD using “Google Domains” - within minutes of registration, the calls started. Some Indian voice offering website construction, ios app, android app, tech support, on & on…over 100 calls in a single week! Used call block but they kept coming. They switch numbers and send 1000s of text messages - neverending…

I learned this the hard way too. Not with Google domains, but another registrar. I was getting dozens of calls a day from Indian voices proposing to create a website for me. Switched the WHOIS data to private and that slowed it down but didn't stop it. This was two years ago and I'm still getting about one call a day. I've since learned there are caching services for WHOIS data that will sell you historical contact data. Obviously the Indian fraudsters are using these services.

The days of friendly WHOIS are over. Never register a domain without setting the privacy flag.

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

#297

Post by balls187 »

honkler wrote: post #212
balls187 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed my point. These call centers are a problem. One that requires cooperation between the US and India to resolve.

yeah. we'll sanction india, and then india will cooperate.

So do you believe the Indian government is complicit in such cyber crimes?

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

#298

Post by olivermarks »

api wrote: post #257
frontman1988 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.sanas.ai/ Be warned. AI accent changers will eliminate that line of defense as well.

Pretty soon it'll eliminate call centers. One person will be able to use AI to mass-robocall millions of people.

What a dystopian, terrifying prospect.

On a personal level I keep a referee's whistle handy in case I'm talking to a scammer live. They are usually wearing headsets and any damage I can do to their hearing with that may save an old persons savings in the following few minutes. Best technique is to speak softly so they turn their volume up then let rip on the whistle

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

#300

Post by aardvarkr »

frontman1988 wrote: post #167
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.

Thankfully that’s still easy enough to spot - it sounds like a better version of those early speech synthesizers we played around with as kids in the nineties - but I can see the elderly having trouble distinguishing it from a real voice.
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