Americans duped into losing $10B by illegal Indian call centres in 2022: report • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by weakfortress » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

balls187 wrote: post #13

To temper the potential for anti-indian rhetoric, US authorities work side by side with local Indian authorities to shut these down. Mark Rober has a few videos dedicated to going after several of these scam call centers, and most recently 3 major ones were shut down and their owners arrested.

"Anti-Indian rhetoric"? The scams literally originate in India, and are masterminded by Indians. Further, the police are often paid off and rarely do anything about it. When enough fuss is caused about one or two they stop them and then another two crop up somewhere else. If you study the history of organized crime, especially in America, this mirrors the Italian mob once they got control of the police. This is organized crime perpetrated specifically against one nation (at scale) and should be treated as such.

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

#62

Post by faxmeyourcode » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

These operations have to be sponsored by the state at this scale. At the bare minimum they're at least looking the other way.

My grandparents are the targets for this kind of scam, and when they call their bank they get an Indian customer service rep to discuss the situation with. Absolutely disgusting that the situation has been tolerated for so long.

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

#63

Post by jen20 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

balls187 wrote: post #33

typingmonkey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark Rober also gets support from the LA police while they do not care about normal peoples theft.

Resource constraints are a problem across all industries. My recollection wrt Rober was the police aided him to help drive awareness. For the “normal peoples theft” what would you like to police to do?

> 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.

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

#64

Post by cgh » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

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.

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.

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

#65

Post by e1g » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

phaedrus wrote: post #34

zippergz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also caused me to completely miss an appliance delivery because the driver called me from his personal cell, I forgot I had "unknown callers" filtered, and he gave up when he couldn't reach me. Even though I get way more spam calls than legitimate calls, I realized that fully half of the legitimate calls I get are from numbers not in my contacts: delivery drivers, doctors offices, restaurants confirming reservations,…

I just accept the collateral damage of never answering calls. Traditional telephone service is dead to anyone under 40.

Anyone under 40, who have no kids, don’t run a business, have no presence in the community, and socialize only with people under 40.

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

#66

Post by tenebrisalietum » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

zippergz wrote: post #27

evo_9 wrote: post #25

Set your phone to silence unknown callers. Completely eliminated the issue for me, along with any other random goofball trying to call me.

Also caused me to completely miss an appliance delivery because the driver called me from his personal cell, I forgot I had "unknown callers" filtered, and he gave up when he couldn't reach me. Even though I get way more spam calls than legitimate calls, I realized that fully half of the legitimate calls I get are from numbers not in my contacts: delivery drivers, doctors offices, restaurants confirming reservations,…

Should have had them text you.

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

#67

Post by AtlasBarfed » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

phaedrus wrote: post #34

zippergz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also caused me to completely miss an appliance delivery because the driver called me from his personal cell, I forgot I had "unknown callers" filtered, and he gave up when he couldn't reach me. Even though I get way more spam calls than legitimate calls, I realized that fully half of the legitimate calls I get are from numbers not in my contacts: delivery drivers, doctors offices, restaurants confirming reservations,…

I just accept the collateral damage of never answering calls. Traditional telephone service is dead to anyone under 40.

This.

Snail mail is so overloaded with spam it might as well be the same.

The fact two fundamental and official mass communication channels are functionally useless is a sign of the rot in our country.

Email is teetering on the void. Chat is balkanized and siloed, same with social media, unlike telephony there is no source monopoly or tradition of cross standards.

Txt is the last bastion. It'll die in the next decade I'd guess.

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

#68

Post by kodah » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #38

marze wrote: post #26

Rather than "caused by illegal Indian call centres in 2022", wouldn't it be more accurate to say "Indian industrial-scale criminal scam operations"?

Operating in collusion with American carriers who don't try to identify and block these operations because they get paid on a per-call basis?

Is that the case?

When I worked in telefony abuse, like this, was pretty hard to track because of all the middlemen involved. They'd have phone banks with multiple phone numbers that they'd lease from providers in India who worked with them to rotate through outbound numbers. India doesn't allow Americans telefony companies, much less voip (in order to provide these telefony companies business), so looking at India from a telefony perspective is much like looking at several black boxes.

Tldr; because of India's policies the country of India has to do something about it. Much like Chinese knockoffs and IP theft.

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

#69

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

prottog wrote: post #10

qwertyuiop_ wrote: post #2

“It may not be a national security concern yet, but the reputation (of a country) is involved, and we don’t want India to suffer on that count,” Daud told the publication. What about the victims?

To be fair, the person who made that statement is the FBI's legal attaché in New Delhi. One would expect a person in such a position to say something like that, to smooth relations with the host country. But yes, I hope the perpetrators are brought to justice and the victims receive some kind of recompense.

> To be fair, the person who made that statement is the FBI's legal attaché in New Delhi. One would expect a person in such a position to say something like that, to smooth relations with the host country.

“It may not be a national security concern yet,” is actually a fairly ominous statement from an FBI official of any kind.

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

#70

Post by jqpabc123 » Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

zippergz wrote: post #27

evo_9 wrote: post #25

Set your phone to silence unknown callers. Completely eliminated the issue for me, along with any other random goofball trying to call me.

Also caused me to completely miss an appliance delivery because the driver called me from his personal cell, I forgot I had "unknown callers" filtered, and he gave up when he couldn't reach me. Even though I get way more spam calls than legitimate calls, I realized that fully half of the legitimate calls I get are from numbers not in my contacts: delivery drivers, doctors offices, restaurants confirming reservations,…

Compromise solution --- send unknown callers directly to voice mail.

Or better yet, ask them to press a random number to connect the call --- before the phone will even ring or go to voice mail. This effectively weeds out most auto-dialers.

I have a Panasonic phone (connected to VOIP) that has this feature built in. It also has text to speech that reads the caller ID out loud. It's amazing how creative these hardware vendors have gotten now that their market is shrinking.

Mobile phones have some catching up to do.