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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

#461

Post by iancmceachern »

ligerzer0 wrote: post #427
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…

What blows my mind is scammers can spoof real people's phone numbers... Like shouldn't that be a top priority to shut down ?

Yes, I've even had them spoof law enforcement phone numbers, we should have the technology to shut that down

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

#462

Post by bbbbb5 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #409
bbbbb5 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> actually useful identity cards

It costs like 100 euros to buy a fake ID that'll work at any bank in Germany. This is a bizarre trope oft-repeated on HN by techies who think that banks actually verify chipped ID cards, they do not. And even if they did, they have to accept a plenty of EU IDs which do not have chips.

Google and look at how a Greek ID card looks like, it's literally a piece of paper.

> opening fake bank accounts for mules very difficult

Are you being sarcastic? https://crimemarket.is/ ctrl-f for BD, there are literally hundreds of people offering german bank accounts.

On the same forum you will find people selling Kleinanzeigen accounts, and DHL insiders creating fake tracking IDs for Kleinanzeigen scams.

> 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.

This isn't true at all. Those scams happen, but they're the minority. You can search for "OB Cashing" on crimemarket, that's the term of art they use for calling up grandmothers and convincing them to empty their bank accounts.

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

#463

Post by smileysteve »

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.

I experienced this, but am tech literate, so did not reveal pin.

But I had wrongly assumed that Facebook marketplace would experience less scam than craigslist because verified users would be their competitive advantage

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

#464

Post by dang »

bbbbb5 wrote: post #459
dang wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please edit swipes and putdowns out of your HN comments? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . Your comment would be fine with just the last two paragraphs, which make your substantive point.

Can't edit comments that old, but I feel like my first sentence was perfectly appropriate given the parents appeal to authority ("I built telecommunications systems / software for some time").

I wouldn't call that an appeal to authority? but even if it were, your comments need to follow the site guidelines regardless of what other commenters are doing. You broke them badly above.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#465

Post by ipython »

harrisonjackson wrote: post #48
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.

Another giveaway is an extra pause before they start talking. This is call software that lets them dial a bunch of numbers at once until someone answers and it switches the person that answered over to an available headset. If you answer and say hello and there's an extra second just hang up. They'll call back if it is important.

There’s also a very distinct “bloop” sound from their phone system, I assume it’s the sound of “connecting” you to their conference. Honestly, that is a 100% signal of a scam call that would be trivial to detect en masse in an automated system.

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

#466

Post by ipython »

woodruffw wrote: post #29
mensetmanusman wrote: post #15

I find that a majority of our incoming calls are scams. Surprised that Google/Apple haven’t fixed this at the behest of the government.

I believe both Android and iOS support SHAKEN/STIR, as long as your carrier supports it. On my phone, at least, I see Caller IDs tagged with "likely spam" if a check fails.

iOS will show a small checkmark near the phone number on incoming calls in the recent call list. Which is great AFTER the fact. I have not seen a way to identify signed callers in the actual “ringing” screen.

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

#467

Post by ipython »

regnull wrote: post #96
mensetmanusman wrote: post #15

I find that a majority of our incoming calls are scams. Surprised that Google/Apple haven’t fixed this at the behest of the government.

Google had a perfect solution for this, Google Voice (formerly Grand Central). This amazing product was languishing for years due to the lack of attention on Google side. They don't let it die, but it doesn't look like they let it live, either. Shame, could be a total game changer.

Problem is that it seems every online site now wants your cell phone number as a sort of captcha these days. And they’ll either explicitly prohibit you or shadow ban you if you use a voip number, making google voice unusable for this use case. So… I guess a burner phone for everyone? So frustrating.

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

#468

Post by bbbbb5 »

dang wrote: post #464
bbbbb5 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't edit comments that old, but I feel like my first sentence was perfectly appropriate given the parents appeal to authority ("I built telecommunications systems / software for some time").

I wouldn't call that an appeal to authority? but even if it were, your comments need to follow the site guidelines regardless of what other commenters are doing. You broke them badly above. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You don't see how that's an appeal to authority, I don't see how my comment violated the site guidelines. I wasn't name-calling or swiping at anyone, I was merely refuting the parents appeal to authority.

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

#469

Post by dang »

bbbbb5 wrote: post #468
dang wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call that an appeal to authority? but even if it were, your comments need to follow the site guidelines regardless of what other commenters are doing. You broke them badly above. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You don't see how that's an appeal to authority, I don't see how my comment violated the site guidelines. I wasn't name-calling or swiping at anyone, I was merely refuting the parents appeal to authority.

If you tell me you don't see how "You've completely missed the mark" breaks the site guidelines, I guess I can see how that's borderline. But "you have no clue whatsoever"? That's a straightforward attack/swipe of exactly the sort you're asked not to post here!

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

#470

Post by javajosh »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #456
javajosh wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want gift cards banned not because of scammers. Like pay-day loan services, gift cards are based on the fraud of profound information asymmetry. Gift cards make liquid cash worse in almost every dimension. It's tied to one supplier. It can be lost. I forgot the stats, but I'm positive billions spent on gift cards are never redeemed. Gift cards are just slightly less evil than payday loan services. They take advanta…

Perhaps the solution is to (further) stigmatize gift cards. The Chinese seem to have figured it out with their red envelopes full of money.

Yeah, how about this: when I get a gift card, I a) discount the gift about 50% based on EV and b) consider the giver kind of stupid for wasting money like this. It's like the opposite of being impressed with someone for getting a good deal. "You spent $5 and this is worth $100 to me, awesome!" versus, "You spent $25 on this and it's worth $10 to me. Yay." Everyone just fucking loses. (Like you, I am surprised at my vehemence - perhaps pg is right that writing and thinking are one and the same, and I'm just late to the epiphany that I absolutely loath gift cards. So much so I wouldn't even mind being known as "that guy who hates gift cards so much".)
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