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RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

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Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#61

Post by kerkeslager »

dmurray wrote: post #45
tempestn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the way the phone system is currently set up, it is not possible to do this due diligence. That is what's being worked on.

This is mostly true, but it would be worked on a lot harder if the companies involved had a financial incentive to work on it. Currently the scammers pay their bills and the incentives work the other way - it's best for them to say they are working on it but drag their feet.

You think "people are switching away from using the traditional phone system entirely" isn't enough incentive? And how, exactly, does an Indian scammer paying a bill to an Indian telco incentivize US telcos to drag their feet? You can blame the Indian telcos, but they also don't have incentives to tolerate scammers--their business would benefit a lot more if calls from Indian numbers weren't automatically assumed to be scams.

While you don't understand the problem, you can't possibly have anything of value to say about the solution.

There may well be perverse incentives causing certain entities to tolerate scammers, but we shouldn't pretend we know what those perverse incentives are when we can't even trace the calls. On the other hand, it is much more likely that once the spoofing problem is solved, the incentives are all already in place and the vast majority of scam calls will be solved.

If a rational person only knows how to use a hammer, they pause when they come across a problem that isn't a nail. But when the HN crowd comes across a problem that isn't immediately solved by incentives, they argue that the people who actually are qualified to solve the problem with other tools, should be using incentives!

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#62

Post by kerkeslager »

michaelt wrote: post #52
kerkeslager wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a surprise to the HN "incentives are the only way to do anything" crowd, but there simply is not an incentive structure that will fix this problem, because nobody knows where the calls are coming from. Not the US, not the telcos, not the countries the calls are coming from, nobody . You can place the tariff on countries, and then the countries just have to accept the tariff because there's not a damn thing…

> nobody knows where the calls are coming from So is the US telco terminating these calls free of charge? It seems unlikely you can spoof payments and telcos turn a blind eye to it...

What part of "they don't know where the calls are coming from" don't you understand? Are they supposed to just close down customers at random hoping they close down a scammer by accident?

Do you really think you're smarter than everyone at the FCC, since you apparently think nobody at the FCC thought of this?

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#63

Post by m-p-3 »

tempestn wrote: post #35
peteretep wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spoofing is real, and not easy to track down depending on the resources you have at your disposal Mmm, but some Canadian or American legal entity is bridging these onto the phone network, and needs to be doing its due diligence better.

The problem is that the way the phone system is currently set up, it is not possible to do this due diligence. That is what's being worked on.

Exactly why STIR/SHAKEN is currently being deployed. That's the issue with widespread legacy systems, you can't pull it out and rebuild from scratch without causing a major disruption.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#64

Post by [deleted] »

raverbashing wrote: post #31
gregmac wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understand use these call centers use VoIP providers in the country though. The traffic crossing the border is likely just an encrypted stream, indistinguishable from some VPN or other generic service. The VoIP providers are getting paid (by the scammers), your cell/phone company is getting paid twice (by both you and the VoIP provider). It's not like customers are switching to the other spam-less phone option, or…

This. Exactly this. Some company in the US does the VoIP->POTS connection. Someone's name and CC is on their file. Saying "oh there's no way to know where the calls come from" is just lame excuses. CallerId spoofing is one thing, but POTS has other systems.

[deleted]

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#66

Post by cbanek »

cmer wrote: post #65

Now hoping they put an end to duct cleaning services calls. Another scam. I get 10 of those a week.

Marketplace actually did a video about the air duct cleaning service scam a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O13Vv4n__J8

It's really good, and they traced it all the way back to the call center (with an insider)! But of course, no one was arrested. Sadly, I don't think the punishment will fit how much annoyance and time wasted.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#68

Post by thbr99 »

dlivingston wrote: post #12
thbr99 wrote: post #9

The kind of stories that makes into HN Front page these days is deplorable. High time to write a filter of my own.

Can you explain what the issue is with this particular story? Otherwise, your comment doesn’t add much value to the broader discussion IMHO.

What good is this story to be on HN ? There are so many scammers out there on CG. Let's list all of them in HN because it really pikes ones intellectual curiosity.
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