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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

#371

Post by shockeychap »

grimgrin wrote: post #352
shockeychap wrote: post #220

My uncle almost drove two states away to give a stranger $10,000 because he was duped into believing his grandson had gotten into an accident and killed a pregnant woman. The only thing that stopped it was that he first needed to borrow the money, which led to my involvement. We made some calls and were quickly able to confirm that the grandson in question was at home and nowhere near the "accident" in question. My p…

similar story for me a year ago. grandpa got a call that i was in jail for hitting a car and the driver was pregnant. lost her baby. they even had “me” talk to them briefly which really got em believing. he went to bank and mailed $9500 in cash, to what ultimately appeared to be an airbnb was v sad because he felt supreme humiliation over the matter.

I'm sorry to hear that. It was almost the exact same thing with my uncle. When I first started asking questions, he tried to assure me it was legit because he had heard his grandson talking in the background. My guess is that they had somebody sobbing hysterically while talking so as to make it hard to recognize that the voice is "off". When you're stressed, it's easy to miss that kind of thing, and they exploit it.

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

#372

Post by patrec »

shockeychap wrote: post #220

My uncle almost drove two states away to give a stranger $10,000 because he was duped into believing his grandson had gotten into an accident and killed a pregnant woman. The only thing that stopped it was that he first needed to borrow the money, which led to my involvement. We made some calls and were quickly able to confirm that the grandson in question was at home and nowhere near the "accident" in question. My p…

> I'm sad to say it, but it's more dangerous than ever to be old or naive

It will get orders of magnitude worse once all this can be fully automated by AI (including a completely realistic video or voice call by the grandson where he talks about killing the pregnant woman).

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

#373

Post by Nifty3929 »

bbbbb5 wrote: post #341
PaybackTony wrote: post #199

I built telecommunications systems / software for some time. The unfortunate truth here is that telecom carriers absolutely already have everything they need to largely put a stop to it but they knowingly ignore it. It's the biggest problem in the US because because of pricing. It's expensive to run outbound campaigns in almost any other country, and very cheap in the US (fractions of a penny per minute compared to 5…

[flagged]

I think you missed the point the previous poster was making: These non-US-based scams generate a ton of revenue for telcos, which is why they are not incented to stop them.

I don't know anything about it, just trying to clarify what (I think) previous poster meant.

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

#374

Post by modriano »

frontman1988 wrote: post #240
prhn wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it bad that I don't feel sorry for the Americans getting scammed yes

Have you been to India and seen the absolute squalour and poverty that exists? I guess the net happiness in the world increases everytime some poor indian scams an american. The american is momentarily pissed off and wiser about scams, while the Indian has got a lot of money that will improve his living standards considerably.

Not every American is wealthy, and none of the Indian scammers are the Indians living in absolute poverty. Have a look at this scammer and his resume [0] and tell me how this college educated criminal defrauding Americans who aren't very tech savvy "increases the net happiness of the world"?

[0] https://youtu.be/EapyNrHp9xo?t=400

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

#375

Post by [deleted] »

Diesel555 wrote: post #355
zackmorris wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic example of an unintended consequence of deregulation. Normally we could petition our elected officials and get something done about it. But lobbyists have come to so completely dominate our legislative process that whole industries have effectively coopted the government through regulatory capture. On top of that, they've hoodwinked half the population into thinking that regulation bad. At this poin…

Anyone claiming “deregulation” for the names sake is speaking rhetoric without knowledge. Both conservative and liberal economists agree with regulation. The most conservative of economists understand the concept of externalities. Call centers bear a clear externality. The business transaction between the telecom Company and the caller bears a negative externality on the callee who is not a member of that transaction…

[deleted]

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

#376

Post by bbbbb5 »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #373
bbbbb5 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think you missed the point the previous poster was making: These non-US-based scams generate a ton of revenue for telcos, which is why they are not incented to stop them. I don't know anything about it, just trying to clarify what (I think) previous poster meant.

PaybackTony literally said "It's the biggest problem in the US because because of pricing." and went on to explain how calling in EU is much more expensive. I think it's safe to assume that he just didn't think this through.

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

#377

Post by sneak »

balls187 wrote: post #129
jen20 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the “normal peoples theft” what would you like to police to do? - show up when called. - if they’re not going to show up, AT LEAST call back. - make at least a token effort to apprehend someone of whom there is a clear video. This does not seem to be outlandish expectations of the service provided by the largest line in city budget.

My guess is there are so many instances of “normal people theft” occurring that even calling back is a significant scale issue. Basically, our criminal justice system is not built to handle minor crimes, and criminal organizations are exploiting that at scale.

Somehow they still manage to write people a lot of tickets, something that generates revenue for the police, and steal the money of legal marijuana businesses, something else that generates revenue for the police.

There are no consequences to the police for ignoring the parts of the job that do not directly generate revenue for the police.

This is not an overarching problem with "the criminal justice system" other than the fact that the police almost everywhere in the US have a culture of graft and rentseeking, and won't do anything if there isn't money or press involved.

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

#378

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Lex-2008 wrote: post #367
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

Can't you disable international calls only for individuals who don't need them?

A carrier could probably do that, individuals could not. The challenge is that caller ID is generally kinda like your email display name: It doesn't mean anything. The important part, which STIR/SHAKEN is adding verification requirements to, is what telcos are actually involved in the exchange.

I'd love a setting I could flip to disable inbound voice calls from any carrier that isn't like... Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Comcast.

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

#379

Post by jliptzin »

Check out kitboga on YouTube for some hilarious scamming the scammer videos. The guy tries to waste as much of the scammer’s time as possible and he’s quite good at it. Of course there’s only so much one person can do, but he does seem to be doing more than the entire US law enforcement apparatus combined.

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

#380

Post by cgh »

josephcsible wrote: post #80
cgh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our phone provider has a free service, Call Control, that’s completely eliminated scam calls. Callers get an automated message asking them to enter a random number. If they enter it correctly, my phone rings as usual. This system foils automated calling services, at least for now.

The problem with services like this is that some automated calls are legitimate.

Legit automated services tend to be opt-in and allow me to specify sms, eg our provincial health service notifying us about vaccine availability.
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