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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

#311

Post by kevmarsden »

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…

That sounds like a nightmare, but I wouldn't let that experience sour your opinion of Google Domains.

I actively avoid Google products, but Google Domains is an exception. They make limited upsell appeals, their pricing is straight forward, and if it's available, they include privacy protection with the annual cost.

And they are clear about the lack of privacy protection for .us domains. This text appears when checking out: "Privacy protection is not supported for .US domains."

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

#312

Post by AntoniusBlock »

frontman1988 wrote: post #213

Is it bad that I don't feel sorry for the Americans getting scammed given the obscene wealth inequality that exists between the two countries? Some wealth shifting to a poor country with millions of malnourished people might actually be a net positive to the world? Morality is complicated for sure.

How much do you make per year?

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

#313

Post by ronsor »

tshaddox wrote: post #307
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.

It’s bonkers to me that gift cards are so readily available to enable these scams. There’s no way the gift card providers (Target, etc.) don’t know about this, but they go out of their way to make it as easy as possible and make sure there is zero support available for scams. It’s so infuriating. I know people who have lost hundreds of dollars to people impersonating US Social Security and immigration officers. The g…

Every store I've been in within the past couple of years has had warnings posted everywhere not to buy gift cards and read the codes to unknown people over the phone.

I'm not sure if there's an alternative, since I'd seriously rather not ID be required to buy or use a gift card.

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

#314

Post by sosull »

BeetleB wrote: post #230
mrsuprawsm wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland is also in the EU :) Here in NL, however, it does seem like scammers are occasionally taking advantage of the comparatively high English proficiency and are trying to scam people in English - this one was doing the rounds for a while: https://www.fraudehelpdesk.nl/alert/engels-telefoontje-namen...

I'm guessing the scammers can't understand the Irish accent :-)

Ah sure look.

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

#315

Post by Cyberdog »

sfifs wrote: post #202
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…

The basic problem is that in highly un-regulated & legalistic economy & polity like the United States, failures such as these are not easily corrected especially where everyone except the weak make money. Everyone who could stop this is making money, the telco operators, amazon, the banks and everyone is weighing the cost of taking any legal or other action and is maximizing their own gain... nobody is really looking…

Consideration needs to be made when thinking that a policy which works in Singapore, one of the smallest countries in the world by area and one with a strong tradition of rather strict governance in the modern era, can be applied to vastly larger ones with some pretense of respect of constitutional civil rights and a history of distrust of strong government.

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

#316

Post by omginternets »

nigerianbrince wrote: post #131
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…

Just install trucaller on their phone.

My experience with Trucaller is that it does just about nothing. I suspect that by the time a number has been marked as spam, the offender has already switched to a new number. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that scammers were monitoring Trucaller and it’s ilk to determine when to change numbers.

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

#317

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#318

Post by lordnacho »

loopdoend wrote: post #272
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.

Indeed, with the gift card system... how does $10 billion get laundered through gift cards like that?

Is it possible to simply pass them around like currency? Eventually the holders will want to buy something from Amazon.

Or, you invent a shop that also trades on Amazon and "buy" the stuff from yourself. That might explain some odd shops that you see online.

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

#319

Post by cdolan »

wil421 wrote: post #276
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.

There’s a common scam on FaceBook Marketplace for sellers. They contact you and are interested in buying what you have. Once they have your phone number they send a google verification code and ask you to send it back to verify each other. The goal is to setup a US google voice number to abuse later.

My wife gets a million hits on stupid items on FBMktPl.

This makes so much sense. Thanks!

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

#320

Post by rootusrootus »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #144
CoastalCoder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for that to be meaningful, there would need to be some mechanism to prevent fly-by-night operations formed to isolate the liability. Maybe requiring them to post a large bond (proportional to the liability) and/or have insurance?

Could someone explain why the reply from @calimac was killed? I'm guessing it has something to do with the snowshoe-spamming reference, but I'm totally in the dark.

Banned by sctb on Oct 16, 2016 for political ranting.
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