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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

#401

Post by bbbbb5 »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #397
bbbbb5 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, fuck gift cards. Make them illegal Most of the losses (in $ terms) from these scams do not involve gift cards. They involve the scammers convincing you to install some remote desktop software and emptying your bank account. It's already illegal to send people to open bank accounts with fake IDs, but the scammers have no problem cashing out the bulk of their profits like that.

How do they get the big bucks out of the last bank?

Sometimes they transfer to a cryptocurrency exchange, sometimes they go to a branch to withdraw everything. Banks don't really like either of those, so issuing checks and cashing them somewhere else is a common scheme.

Some may bounce the money through a few accounts and eventually into a business account that'll send it overseas, it depends.

The people on the ground are random replaceable idiots.

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

#402

Post by dylan604 »

Mistletoe wrote: post #370
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…

It scares me very much that these people vote and the terrible state of American politics largely reflects that. If you can’t have the forethought to call your grandson to see before giving someone $10,000, do you have the brain capacity to make an intelligent voting choice? I know this is a tangent to your comment but after seeing my parents and others their age do similar things to what you describe it makes me won…

I'm much much less concerned about senior citizens casting their vote than I am about the number of people that get their "news" from opinion shows under the banner of news programming. Doesn't matter the network, but if you're providing opinions, a giant opaque 288pt Impact font overlay of the word OPINION should be mandated to be on the screen. As long as people are duped into thinking opinions are news, we're never going to get a better electorate.

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

#403

Post by mike_hock »

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…

> education isn't going to solve the scam problem

If someone is being told that yadda yadda (story doesn't matter) and they have to pay in gift cards, and they seriously believe that, then surely education seems to be the right fix.

Rule no. 1: Gift cards = scam.

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

#404

Post by [deleted] »

nostromo wrote: post #366
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…

Telcos are one of the most regulated industries in existence. And as I point out in my sibling comment, bad regulation is the reason this problem exists: because telcos are not legally able to block most spam calls. If not for this regulation, telcos would have solved spam callers long ago by blocking suspected sources of spam. (Instead, they do work-arounds like labeling them "scam likely.")

[deleted]

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

#405

Post by ninkendo »

alistairSH wrote: post #57
deadbunny wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a delivery. Couldn't he have knocked on your door?

They often call at dispatch time to ensure you’re there to accept delivery. They don’t want to drive out, only to have to return the appliance because nobody was home.

I’ve had several occurrences where a delivery person would get all the way to my house, park on my street, call my phone, and if I didn’t answer, just drive away. I don’t think it’s always about the mileage, sometimes the driver is just lazy and wants any excuse to not have to do their job.

(It’s happened with a package delivery, as well as a washing machine installation. In the latter case it was Home Depot, when I finally got ahold of them they said it was my fault for not answering the phone and that I had to reschedule for 2 weeks out, meanwhile I didn’t have a working washing machine. I cancelled the order instead, went to Lowe’s and had a washer in a few hours.)

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

#406

Post by tjoff »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #73
tjoff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "solution" and mindset completely undermines the utility of a phone. Which at least I think is a grave mistake. You might argue that you barely use the phone as a phone, and that might have been a good argument if there was anything remotely equivalent.

Basically blaming the victim, ain't it? The fault is squarely with the carriers.

I don't think so, two different faults.

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

#407

Post by mschuster91 »

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…

> The most conservative of economists understand the concept of externalities.

Even conservative economists (and for that matter, also other experts) usually aren't dumb, but I've never seen one of them act on their knowledge appropriately. They all prioritize their ideology and their donors, some of them even refuse to listen to science and facts when people die by the masses.

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

#409

Post by mschuster91 »

bbbbb5 wrote: post #376
Nifty3929 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By absolute numbers, I do believe OP is correct. In Germany, we do have a problem with phone based scams as well, but since we have modern ways of transferring money (SEPA wire transfers / direct debit) and actually useful identity cards that make opening fake bank accounts for mules very difficult, almost all scams rely on personal contact instead - the most common scheme is fake policemen, where the callcenter will call elderly people and pressure them to go to their bank to draw cash, then a "policeman" shows up at the door and takes the cash.

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

#410

Post by chinabot »

nostromo wrote: post #366
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…

Telcos are one of the most regulated industries in existence. And as I point out in my sibling comment, bad regulation is the reason this problem exists: because telcos are not legally able to block most spam calls. If not for this regulation, telcos would have solved spam callers long ago by blocking suspected sources of spam. (Instead, they do work-arounds like labeling them "scam likely.")

Scam calls are already criminal what more regulation is required?
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