9 ms·

Inside the TalkTalk 'Indian scam call centre'

130 points by dberhane 10y ago

bhouston 10y ago
Key point - because they outsourced a call center to India, the customer data of TalkTalk was stolen along with their customer care scripts. This was then used to setup a fraudulent call center in India that has been scamming their customers - brutal: > In 2011, TalkTalk outsourced some of its call-centre work to the Kolkata (Calcutta) office of Wipro, one of India's largest IT service companies. > Last year, three Wipro employees were arrested on suspicion of selling TalkTalk customer data. > A source in Kolkata, who did not want to be named, alleges the same data was obtained by a criminal gang, with USB sticks full of data trading hands at parties.
- djhworld 10y ago
  It's quite a clever and elaborate social engineering scam, especially using the stolen data to use as a tool to get the mark to believe the call is genuine.
- willvarfar 10y ago
  If they had been TalkTalk employees, in India, it could still have happened. If they had been TalkTalk employees, in the UK or any other country, it could still have happened. It doesn't seem that its because they outsourced a call centre to India, or even because they outsourced a call centre, but rather because three call centre employees were corrupt. Anyone following the UK news knows there are plenty of insider-jobs happening on-shore too.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Certainly you agree that its easier to get something like this done in India though? Roughly half of the population[0] there has paid a bribe at some point in time. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India
    - GFischer 10y ago
      Only half? Any South American over 18 has probably paid a bribe at some point (mostly traffic tickets or such here in Uruguay, and most elsewhere in Latin America). If you travel for any length of time in Latin America, chances are the police will attempt to extract a bribe. http://www.drivetheamericas.com/wiki/dealing-corrupt-police http://www.drivetheamericas.com/wiki/dealing-corrupt-police https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/opinion/south-americas-culture-of-graft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/opinion/south-americas-cu...
    - delecti 10y ago
      Certainly that's not a good sign, but I don't find that statistic nearly as interesting as the (apparently unmentioned) proportion of the population who has accepted a bribe. If paying a bribe is only the way to get things done, then doing so is just trying to move through the system. In a corrupt system, accepting a bribe is the sign that an individual is themselves corrupt.
      - madez 10y ago
        Besides the fact that in India corruption and scam is a common and widespread problem, accepting a bribe is certainly worse than giving one. Sometimes you just don't have any other option than giving a bribe, while the one accepting the bribe most often has.
      - lostboys67 10y ago
        Both are under UK and US laws as RollsRoyce is finding out
      - speeder 10y ago
        I am from Brazil, once a poll was made with two questions: 1. Do you believe all politicians are corrupt? 2. If you got elected, would you become corrupt? The replies for "yes" were 90% for question 1 and 67% for question 2.
    - gnufied 10y ago
      Way to go cherry picking - "paid bribe or influence peddling" even if we take reliability of such a data at its face value. Did you read your own source? But who am I kidding right. Certainly US & UK is bastion of corruption free conduct by public officials/politicians. A majority of our public leaders gets enough money from companies that - climate change has been debunked as a problem. Corruption in a developed world and developing country is very different. In India - a street cop makes $200-$300/month, his corruption involves taking 20 Rupees($0.3) from an Autorickshaw that should have been carrying 3 passengers and carries 5. You don't see this kind of corruption in US for obvious reasons. This is the kind of corruption most Indians deal with in daily life - yeah it is not great but this is something country has to live with until country figures out a way to deal with it. What worries me more is - corruption in upper echelons of power. People who can do real damage. Someone paid someone to plant a hoax about WMDs in Iraq and a country is on brink of destruction. Enough politicians are on NRA payroll that - guns will be sold to anyone. But I digress - I don't see how corruption of public officials in India led to this scam call center. It sounds like - bunch of people got greedy and decided to make some quick money. It can happen anywhere - look at Wall Street, Uber, Well Fargo..
  - lostboys67 10y ago
    True but only up to a point do this to say BT and you will have the Feared Investigations Branch" / Security Directorate down on you like a ton of bricks. BTW SD is like the auditors in the laundry files but not as nice. Also perception is key here if you get a reputation for scammers if unfourtunelty it has nagtive impact on the whole country
  - matt_s 10y ago
    I think there is a higher chance of data theft because it is outsourced to a different country and to a different company. There is less risk and/or maybe more mental space to rationalize the theft of data. Maybe their company treats them poorly, maybe they believe they can't get caught as easily. If they were in-house in the same company, there is more risk/punishment, right?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - bhouston 10y ago
    It is much harder to try and prosecute this across international lines, especially in India where corruption is much more rampant (India has a much higher corruption index than Western nations like US, Canada, UK, France and Germany.) Your argument that it could happen is basically saying that in India the chance of this happening is > 0% and in the UK the chance is > 0%, but that doesn't mean that the chance of it happening in India is the same as it happening in the UK. My home get calls from Duct Cleaners and Windows Support and it is always from India and Pakistan and its gone on for years. There is clearly less than effective means of controlling these types of scams.
    - tyingq 10y ago
      I imagine that the revenue per hour of call time isn't that great either. So this kind of scam works better in an area with lower average wages.
    - shripadk 10y ago
      > It is much harder to try and prosecute this across international lines, especially in India where corruption is much more rampant Wrong. In fact it is the opposite. India is taking steps to crackdown on these scammers as and when it receives requests from foreign governments: 1. TalkTalk call center workers arrested in India: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 2. IRS scam drop off after India arrests: http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-your-side/2016/11/04/irs-scam-calls-india/93249474/ http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-yo... 3. India arrests 70 in alleged tax scam targeting Americans: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans-sees-70-people-arrested/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans... > (India has a much higher corruption index than Western nations like US, Canada, UK, France and Germany.) Your argument that it could happen is basically saying that in India the chance of this happening is > 0% and in the UK the chance is > 0%, but that doesn't mean that the chance of it happening in India is the same as it happening in the UK. What you are talking about is corruption "perception" index with "perception" being the key word. Just because India has a higher "perceived" corruption index does not make it actually more corrupt that the Western countries. This "perception" arises from economic disparity/divide rather than any quantitative analysis of actual prevalent corruption. Here is an interesting food for thought: All corrupt politicians, businessmen etc who, when caught by the investigative agencies in India, flee the country. You know their favorite destination? The United Kingdom. Surely if the UK had a much lower corruption index, it wouldn't tolerate and harbor corrupt officials and businessmen fleeing India right? If you don't believe me, here are few examples: 1. Lalit Modi: http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/lalit-modi-soon-to-be-uk-citizen-check-out-his-posh-london-residence-773414 http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/lalit-modi-soon-to-be-uk-citi... 2. Vijay Mallya: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/vijay-mallya-secret-house-in-london-has-famous-neighbours/1/616421.html http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/vijay-mallya-secret-house... 3. India hands over list of 57 fugitives to UK: http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/nov/07/india-hands-over-a-list-of-57-fugitives-including-vijay-mallya-to-uk-1536002.html http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/nov/07/india-han... How about Switzerland? It possibly ranks the lowest in corruption index. Yet, you find that all black money hoarders stash their ill-gotten wealth in Banks in Switzerland. No tax, highest secrecy and excellent protection of wealth is nothing but legalized corruption in my opinion.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    But there are criminal prosecutions for this stuff in the uk. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2017/01/ico-warns-people-it-s-against-the-law-to-take-clients-personal-information-to-a-new-company/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2017/02/london-house-raided-as-part-of-illegal-data-trading-probe/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2016/06/ico-investigators-raid-house-for-evidence-of-illegal-data-selling/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... etc etc.
    - shripadk 10y ago
      And in India as well: 1. TalkTalk call center workers arrested in India: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 2. IRS scam drop off after India arrests: http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-your-side/2016/11/04/irs-scam-calls-india/93249474/ http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-yo... 3. India arrests 70 in alleged tax scam targeting Americans: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans-sees-70-people-arrested/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans...
      - DanBC 10y ago
        Thank you for this. I don't know the right words to put into search engines to get good results.
  - calvinbhai 10y ago
    So true! When those sounding like brown people do it, for some 'reason' the news bubbles up as "Indian" ..... Sadly, such racist simplification only lets the offending company (TalkTalk in this case) off the hook, and diverts attention towards hating Indians. Only way to fix this is make such breaches so expensive to companies that they'd think twice before outsourcing either within the country or to a company in an another country (which will lead to stronger procedures at outsourced location).
  - raverbashing 10y ago
    But being in a far away country makes it easier to go unpunished
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    Go ahead and start one of these businesses in the US and UK and see how long you last. There are several reasons why this happens mostly in India, but the main one is that there's a jurisdiction barrier that benefits criminals. We know the voip resellers know who these customers are, and law enforcement finds out through these providers, but now what? You can't just call the Indian embassy and demand the arrest of hundreds of people. There's a lot of diplomatic finesse that needs to happen and by the time it does, assuming its even possible, these groups have moved on to different locations, different providers, different staff, etc after cashing out. Worse, India is notoriously corrupt, much like Russia, another hotbed of cybercrime, so sharing your cybercrime spoils with the local government goes a long to to prosecution immunity. I understand HN has a lot of prideful India and Russian nationals, but ultimately one shouldn't go against the facts. Pretending these countries aren't safe havens for cybercrime is just asinine.
    - willvarfar 10y ago
      And there I was thinking it was because english-speaking staff are cheap? These days most IT jobs are being outsourced from India to e.g. Vietnam, with project management and customer interaction still being done by proxy in English by Indians.
    - fellellor 10y ago
      The most important reason this seems to happen only in India is that the victims are not in India. So they have to go through their local government and multiple slow processes for the case to be resolved. The unfortunate fact is the prevailing exchange rate difference makes even relatively ordinary western citizens' assets, worth stealing for criminals based here. Also I imagine, such people when defrauded are not in a position to force their authorities to go after criminals not in the same jurisdiction. Or maybe you are suggesting that people from UK are so inherently good that they don't cheat each other at all.
- agnivade 10y ago
  My friend worked in Kolkata center of TalkTalk. He was asked once by another common friend of ours to leak customer data to him. And get about 1 Lakh in payment. He quickly refused and never talked to him again.
desireco42 10y ago
I've been repeatedly called with 'Support Scam' where they trick you into installing sw that lets them monitor and control your computer. I don't remember this being as prevalent as before. Clearly it is profitable and they are finding enough targets to warrant operations.
- zaphar 10y ago
  It's a lot easier to pull this off when you have customer records to do it with. That raises the chances that you can convince them you are legitimate.
  - ben_jones 10y ago
    It could go even further then that. If the TalkTalk data included normal company data you would have the names of previous support members, and from there social media accounts and so forth.
- chiph 10y ago
  My father fell for this scam. As you get older, you lose patience with computers, so he developed a tendency to click on anything to get browser popups to just go away. One of them was a "Your computer is infected and we have the cure" scam. His info was passed to their "customer care desk" which took him for $300 to supposedly clean his PC. They would regularly call back for subscription renewals (more $$$). I didn't find out until it had been going on for a few years, because dad didn't want to bother me with his computer problems. Make sure you inform your parents about this - they're easy marks for these assholes.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - desireco42 10y ago
    Sorry to hear for your dad. Definitely majority of population is not capable to handle all the details modern tech is requiring. I do blame modern tech for that.
ikeboy 10y ago
Dell support has a similar issue. Relatives of mine have been contacted by people claiming to be from Dell support soon after the person actually opened a case with support (so someone has ongoing access to the Dell database). The scammer had the tag of the computer, which I confirmed was correct. They basically said to check the error log of Windows with instructions. There are always some benign errors, which they'll tell you are proof there's something wrong, and then try to get you to download software to fix it. Edit: see https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/latest-tech-support-scam-stokes-concerns-dell-customer-data-was-breached/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/latest-tech-support... and https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/02/dell-to-customers-report-service-tag-scams/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/02/dell-to-customers-report...
- Already__Taken 10y ago
  The only bit of fake delivery tracking scam I've received was suspiciously right after I ordered a Dell XPS back in 2013. It had some details close enough that I had to message dell to confirm a tracking number and they hadn't shipped it yet.
- BoorishBears 10y ago
  The Event Viewer seems to be a common element in all these scams, maybe MS should add a warning to indicate most errors are harmless?
jeena 10y ago
I've been called by some "Windows support" three times during last month. The first time I didn't have the time to talk to them but the second time I took the time to do so. Somehow, even though I don't have a windows computer, I was able to fake it for about 10 minutes that I am following his instructions and doing what he tells me. First I had to press Win+r, which I didn't really know what it did, but I suspected it opened the CMD, so I told him that a new window opened, a black one. Then he spelled to me what I should write (I don't remember what, I didn't have anything to write with me). Then he asked me if I had Chrome installed, I said yes and he spelled a website url to me. I told him that it loaded and there was a "Download" button and asked if I should click it. He said yes. Then he talked me through how to install it, from his description I got that it was TeamViewer. He told me to start it, bare in mind that this was painfully slow for both of us because I had to come up with plausible mistake to make and had to think of some plausible but generic answers on the way because he always asked me what I'm seeing on the streen now. After I "started" it I had to tell him that in fact I didn't have a computer in front of me, but I only was playing along with his script. He stopped for a couple of seconds and then he asked me: "How is this possible ...? Why are you waisting my time??"
- Klathmon 10y ago
  I've had them curse and scream at me for wasting their time. One time after a few minutes on a call he asked me what I saw on the screen and I just said "My wallpaper, with the word Ubuntu across the back" and he started shouting "fucking kill yourself" and hung up!
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    I'd love to do this, but they have my phone number. I really don't want to have to get a new one if they get pissed enough to make it unusable.
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      They have little incentive to bother you once it's clear you aren't falling for it. The more of their time you waste, the more likely you'll get to some permanent blacklist which is good.
mhw 10y ago
I'm a TalkTalk customer, and was on the receiving end of this scam last year. I'm savvy enough to know that all the machines on our network were unlikely to be suffering from the problems they tried to describe (only one Windows laptop, and that was dual boot with Linux and carefully used). The most annoying thing (for us) was that they repeatedly called the home number at random intervals through the day until we actually picked up, and then you'd get complete silence most of the time. When they finally managed to get someone on the phone on their end it was easy enough to tell them they were scammers and get rid of them, but I can see how those who are less confident around technology could easily be taken in by them.
- acomjean 10y ago
  "you'd get complete silence most of the time" This is caller software. They figured it was too wasteful to have operators waiting for the phone for you to answer, so a machine dials you and when you answer its supposed to patch you into an operator. Obviously if they're are more calls then operators, you wait, or just hang up....
  - eric_the_read 10y ago
    My (least) favorite variant of this is the telemarketers who wait for you to say "hello", then, after they quickly conference in the actual operator, they say, "Oh! Sorry, I was having a problem with my headset. Anyway, I'd like to ask you about..."
bjourne 10y ago
Someone tipped me about "Lenny": https://www.youtube.com/user/ToaoDotNet/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/user/ToaoDotNet/videos?view=0&sort=p... I'd love to know if it is possible to route calls from outside the US to him!
- chaser7016 10y ago
  That needs to be a service... if a phone call is received not listed in your contacts send them to Lenny.
- iicc 10y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ > Instructions for use: > Transfer, conference, or forward your telemarketing calls to 1-347-514-7296 or sip:13475147296@in.callcentric.com. If you conference Lenny in, be sure to mute your phone. The rules: Lenny is for incoming, telemarketing calls only - not for annoying people, even if they deserve it. >Testing/experimental calls are fine, as long as they don't bother anyone.
  - bjourne 10y ago
    I tried it and the recording says Lenny doesn't accept international calls.
neilwilson 10y ago
I happened to have the 400 series http errors open when one of these chappies rang up. I think I got to 'Request, Time Out' before he twigged.
mpswardle 10y ago
I got called by these guys last month. It was immediately obvious something was amiss as the line quality was absolutely dreadful, like virtually inaudible. The lady on the other end said i had been identified as someone from TalkTalk who would be having problems with my internet speed and they could help. She then asked me what OS i run, when i said OS X she hung up.
greatartiste 10y ago
My wife used to be a Talk Talk customer in the days of dial ins. Anyway 5 or so years back they suddenly started billing her credit card again monthly for the service she had cancelled years before. We couldn't stop this online as their system claimed no knowledge of her so I had to call the support numbers listed on the Talk Talk website. These went through to the usual Indian call centre but what went on there was very unusual. The first operator wanted my wife to post him her VISA statements to his home address (as they would get lost in the post if we sent them to Talk Talk). Another call brought an operator who said he could only trace what had happened if my wife gave him her VISA number and CVV over the phone !! I tried to call their Fraud Prevention office but got another Indian who wanted a VISA number before we could proceed. After multiple calls one day a call was answered by an Irish voice who was very apologetic and arranged a refund which arrived a few days later. Attempts to tell Talk Talks UK office about this went no where as all calls seemed to go to the same Indian call centre. Since I have read that Talk Talk had closed their Irish call centre for reasons of cost and now all support is from their Indian call centres. Avoid this company at all costs.
codedokode 10y ago
I wonder is not it bank's responsibility to refund the money that were stolen from customer's account? And don't they use SMS messages to confirm outgoing payments? But this case shows also that Internet banking UI are too complicated for some people and they don't realise what they are doing when following scammers' instructions.
user_rob 10y ago
TalkTalk need to do more to fix this issue as they were responsible for not keeping customer information secure. Admittedly they did give out free stuff last year as a sort of compensation. However if this annoyance is not resolved soon TalkTalk's reputation will slide further.
siddharthdeswal 10y ago
So yeah, I knew someone who worked at a place like this in their previous job. For him, it was just a job that paid really well. He frequently made more than Rs. 1 lakh per month, which is kind of a big deal in India when you're just a year or so out of an average, run of the mill college. Generally, these 'call centres' train employees to think that Americans are really stupid people who can be scared & fooled easily. Given the commissions he made, they were damn good at it, specially with the older people who would pay fairly large amounts every month or so to keep their computers virus free. He never thought he was in some scammy company though. For him, the callers were 'virus' hit users who were calling to get their computers repaired, and these guys just had to make quick, easy, FUD driven upsells. Oh, and these guys are unhappiest when they are made the manager, who get a very small commission from their team's upsells. I guess this meant that no one was looking for 'career growth'.
EJTH 10y ago
Tech scamming is an interesting phenomenon to say the least... I have been binge watching scambaiters on youtube recently. I can highly recommend it if you want an introduction to how these scammers work.
st3v3r 10y ago
We need to find this place, and issue drone strikes as soon as possible. If that is the only thing that Trump does with the rest of his presidency, he will go down as a better president than Obama.
duracel 10y ago
I can't believe how these companies do not get busted ever ? Englang is really unfair country for small business owners. More bigger corporation, less they pay tax, less they care of customers, less they protect your data...

130 points by dberhane 10y ago

Key point - because they outsourced a call center to India, the customer data of TalkTalk was stolen along with their customer care scripts. This was then used to setup a fraudulent call center in India that has been scamming their customers - brutal: > In 2011, TalkTalk outsourced some of its call-centre work to the Kolkata (Calcutta) office of Wipro, one of India's largest IT service companies. > Last year, three Wipro employees were arrested on suspicion of selling TalkTalk customer data. > A source in Kolkata, who did not want to be named, alleges the same data was obtained by a criminal gang, with USB sticks full of data trading hands at parties.

djhworld 10y ago
It's quite a clever and elaborate social engineering scam, especially using the stolen data to use as a tool to get the mark to believe the call is genuine.
willvarfar 10y ago
If they had been TalkTalk employees, in India, it could still have happened. If they had been TalkTalk employees, in the UK or any other country, it could still have happened. It doesn't seem that its because they outsourced a call centre to India, or even because they outsourced a call centre, but rather because three call centre employees were corrupt. Anyone following the UK news knows there are plenty of insider-jobs happening on-shore too.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Certainly you agree that its easier to get something like this done in India though? Roughly half of the population[0] there has paid a bribe at some point in time. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India
  - GFischer 10y ago
    Only half? Any South American over 18 has probably paid a bribe at some point (mostly traffic tickets or such here in Uruguay, and most elsewhere in Latin America). If you travel for any length of time in Latin America, chances are the police will attempt to extract a bribe. http://www.drivetheamericas.com/wiki/dealing-corrupt-police http://www.drivetheamericas.com/wiki/dealing-corrupt-police https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/opinion/south-americas-culture-of-graft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/opinion/south-americas-cu...
  - delecti 10y ago
    Certainly that's not a good sign, but I don't find that statistic nearly as interesting as the (apparently unmentioned) proportion of the population who has accepted a bribe. If paying a bribe is only the way to get things done, then doing so is just trying to move through the system. In a corrupt system, accepting a bribe is the sign that an individual is themselves corrupt.
    - madez 10y ago
      Besides the fact that in India corruption and scam is a common and widespread problem, accepting a bribe is certainly worse than giving one. Sometimes you just don't have any other option than giving a bribe, while the one accepting the bribe most often has.
    - lostboys67 10y ago
      Both are under UK and US laws as RollsRoyce is finding out
    - speeder 10y ago
      I am from Brazil, once a poll was made with two questions: 1. Do you believe all politicians are corrupt? 2. If you got elected, would you become corrupt? The replies for "yes" were 90% for question 1 and 67% for question 2.
  - gnufied 10y ago
    Way to go cherry picking - "paid bribe or influence peddling" even if we take reliability of such a data at its face value. Did you read your own source? But who am I kidding right. Certainly US & UK is bastion of corruption free conduct by public officials/politicians. A majority of our public leaders gets enough money from companies that - climate change has been debunked as a problem. Corruption in a developed world and developing country is very different. In India - a street cop makes $200-$300/month, his corruption involves taking 20 Rupees($0.3) from an Autorickshaw that should have been carrying 3 passengers and carries 5. You don't see this kind of corruption in US for obvious reasons. This is the kind of corruption most Indians deal with in daily life - yeah it is not great but this is something country has to live with until country figures out a way to deal with it. What worries me more is - corruption in upper echelons of power. People who can do real damage. Someone paid someone to plant a hoax about WMDs in Iraq and a country is on brink of destruction. Enough politicians are on NRA payroll that - guns will be sold to anyone. But I digress - I don't see how corruption of public officials in India led to this scam call center. It sounds like - bunch of people got greedy and decided to make some quick money. It can happen anywhere - look at Wall Street, Uber, Well Fargo..
- lostboys67 10y ago
  True but only up to a point do this to say BT and you will have the Feared Investigations Branch" / Security Directorate down on you like a ton of bricks. BTW SD is like the auditors in the laundry files but not as nice. Also perception is key here if you get a reputation for scammers if unfourtunelty it has nagtive impact on the whole country
- matt_s 10y ago
  I think there is a higher chance of data theft because it is outsourced to a different country and to a different company. There is less risk and/or maybe more mental space to rationalize the theft of data. Maybe their company treats them poorly, maybe they believe they can't get caught as easily. If they were in-house in the same company, there is more risk/punishment, right?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bhouston 10y ago
  It is much harder to try and prosecute this across international lines, especially in India where corruption is much more rampant (India has a much higher corruption index than Western nations like US, Canada, UK, France and Germany.) Your argument that it could happen is basically saying that in India the chance of this happening is > 0% and in the UK the chance is > 0%, but that doesn't mean that the chance of it happening in India is the same as it happening in the UK. My home get calls from Duct Cleaners and Windows Support and it is always from India and Pakistan and its gone on for years. There is clearly less than effective means of controlling these types of scams.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    I imagine that the revenue per hour of call time isn't that great either. So this kind of scam works better in an area with lower average wages.
  - shripadk 10y ago
    > It is much harder to try and prosecute this across international lines, especially in India where corruption is much more rampant Wrong. In fact it is the opposite. India is taking steps to crackdown on these scammers as and when it receives requests from foreign governments: 1. TalkTalk call center workers arrested in India: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 2. IRS scam drop off after India arrests: http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-your-side/2016/11/04/irs-scam-calls-india/93249474/ http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-yo... 3. India arrests 70 in alleged tax scam targeting Americans: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans-sees-70-people-arrested/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans... > (India has a much higher corruption index than Western nations like US, Canada, UK, France and Germany.) Your argument that it could happen is basically saying that in India the chance of this happening is > 0% and in the UK the chance is > 0%, but that doesn't mean that the chance of it happening in India is the same as it happening in the UK. What you are talking about is corruption "perception" index with "perception" being the key word. Just because India has a higher "perceived" corruption index does not make it actually more corrupt that the Western countries. This "perception" arises from economic disparity/divide rather than any quantitative analysis of actual prevalent corruption. Here is an interesting food for thought: All corrupt politicians, businessmen etc who, when caught by the investigative agencies in India, flee the country. You know their favorite destination? The United Kingdom. Surely if the UK had a much lower corruption index, it wouldn't tolerate and harbor corrupt officials and businessmen fleeing India right? If you don't believe me, here are few examples: 1. Lalit Modi: http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/lalit-modi-soon-to-be-uk-citizen-check-out-his-posh-london-residence-773414 http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/lalit-modi-soon-to-be-uk-citi... 2. Vijay Mallya: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/vijay-mallya-secret-house-in-london-has-famous-neighbours/1/616421.html http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/vijay-mallya-secret-house... 3. India hands over list of 57 fugitives to UK: http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/nov/07/india-hands-over-a-list-of-57-fugitives-including-vijay-mallya-to-uk-1536002.html http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/nov/07/india-han... How about Switzerland? It possibly ranks the lowest in corruption index. Yet, you find that all black money hoarders stash their ill-gotten wealth in Banks in Switzerland. No tax, highest secrecy and excellent protection of wealth is nothing but legalized corruption in my opinion.
- DanBC 10y ago
  But there are criminal prosecutions for this stuff in the uk. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2017/01/ico-warns-people-it-s-against-the-law-to-take-clients-personal-information-to-a-new-company/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2017/02/london-house-raided-as-part-of-illegal-data-trading-probe/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2016/06/ico-investigators-raid-house-for-evidence-of-illegal-data-selling/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... etc etc.
  - shripadk 10y ago
    And in India as well: 1. TalkTalk call center workers arrested in India: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35425275 2. IRS scam drop off after India arrests: http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-your-side/2016/11/04/irs-scam-calls-india/93249474/ http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/press-on-yo... 3. India arrests 70 in alleged tax scam targeting Americans: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans-sees-70-people-arrested/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-tax-scam-against-americans...
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Thank you for this. I don't know the right words to put into search engines to get good results.
- calvinbhai 10y ago
  So true! When those sounding like brown people do it, for some 'reason' the news bubbles up as "Indian" ..... Sadly, such racist simplification only lets the offending company (TalkTalk in this case) off the hook, and diverts attention towards hating Indians. Only way to fix this is make such breaches so expensive to companies that they'd think twice before outsourcing either within the country or to a company in an another country (which will lead to stronger procedures at outsourced location).
- raverbashing 10y ago
  But being in a far away country makes it easier to go unpunished
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Go ahead and start one of these businesses in the US and UK and see how long you last. There are several reasons why this happens mostly in India, but the main one is that there's a jurisdiction barrier that benefits criminals. We know the voip resellers know who these customers are, and law enforcement finds out through these providers, but now what? You can't just call the Indian embassy and demand the arrest of hundreds of people. There's a lot of diplomatic finesse that needs to happen and by the time it does, assuming its even possible, these groups have moved on to different locations, different providers, different staff, etc after cashing out. Worse, India is notoriously corrupt, much like Russia, another hotbed of cybercrime, so sharing your cybercrime spoils with the local government goes a long to to prosecution immunity. I understand HN has a lot of prideful India and Russian nationals, but ultimately one shouldn't go against the facts. Pretending these countries aren't safe havens for cybercrime is just asinine.
  - willvarfar 10y ago
    And there I was thinking it was because english-speaking staff are cheap? These days most IT jobs are being outsourced from India to e.g. Vietnam, with project management and customer interaction still being done by proxy in English by Indians.
  - fellellor 10y ago
    The most important reason this seems to happen only in India is that the victims are not in India. So they have to go through their local government and multiple slow processes for the case to be resolved. The unfortunate fact is the prevailing exchange rate difference makes even relatively ordinary western citizens' assets, worth stealing for criminals based here. Also I imagine, such people when defrauded are not in a position to force their authorities to go after criminals not in the same jurisdiction. Or maybe you are suggesting that people from UK are so inherently good that they don't cheat each other at all.
agnivade 10y ago
My friend worked in Kolkata center of TalkTalk. He was asked once by another common friend of ours to leak customer data to him. And get about 1 Lakh in payment. He quickly refused and never talked to him again.

desireco42 10y ago

I've been repeatedly called with 'Support Scam' where they trick you into installing sw that lets them monitor and control your computer. I don't remember this being as prevalent as before. Clearly it is profitable and they are finding enough targets to warrant operations.

zaphar 10y ago
It's a lot easier to pull this off when you have customer records to do it with. That raises the chances that you can convince them you are legitimate.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  It could go even further then that. If the TalkTalk data included normal company data you would have the names of previous support members, and from there social media accounts and so forth.
chiph 10y ago
My father fell for this scam. As you get older, you lose patience with computers, so he developed a tendency to click on anything to get browser popups to just go away. One of them was a "Your computer is infected and we have the cure" scam. His info was passed to their "customer care desk" which took him for $300 to supposedly clean his PC. They would regularly call back for subscription renewals (more $$$). I didn't find out until it had been going on for a few years, because dad didn't want to bother me with his computer problems. Make sure you inform your parents about this - they're easy marks for these assholes.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- desireco42 10y ago
  Sorry to hear for your dad. Definitely majority of population is not capable to handle all the details modern tech is requiring. I do blame modern tech for that.

ikeboy 10y ago

Dell support has a similar issue. Relatives of mine have been contacted by people claiming to be from Dell support soon after the person actually opened a case with support (so someone has ongoing access to the Dell database). The scammer had the tag of the computer, which I confirmed was correct. They basically said to check the error log of Windows with instructions. There are always some benign errors, which they'll tell you are proof there's something wrong, and then try to get you to download software to fix it. Edit: see https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/latest-tech-support-scam-stokes-concerns-dell-customer-data-was-breached/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/latest-tech-support... and https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/02/dell-to-customers-report-service-tag-scams/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/02/dell-to-customers-report...

Already__Taken 10y ago
The only bit of fake delivery tracking scam I've received was suspiciously right after I ordered a Dell XPS back in 2013. It had some details close enough that I had to message dell to confirm a tracking number and they hadn't shipped it yet.
BoorishBears 10y ago
The Event Viewer seems to be a common element in all these scams, maybe MS should add a warning to indicate most errors are harmless?

jeena 10y ago

I've been called by some "Windows support" three times during last month. The first time I didn't have the time to talk to them but the second time I took the time to do so. Somehow, even though I don't have a windows computer, I was able to fake it for about 10 minutes that I am following his instructions and doing what he tells me. First I had to press Win+r, which I didn't really know what it did, but I suspected it opened the CMD, so I told him that a new window opened, a black one. Then he spelled to me what I should write (I don't remember what, I didn't have anything to write with me). Then he asked me if I had Chrome installed, I said yes and he spelled a website url to me. I told him that it loaded and there was a "Download" button and asked if I should click it. He said yes. Then he talked me through how to install it, from his description I got that it was TeamViewer. He told me to start it, bare in mind that this was painfully slow for both of us because I had to come up with plausible mistake to make and had to think of some plausible but generic answers on the way because he always asked me what I'm seeing on the streen now. After I "started" it I had to tell him that in fact I didn't have a computer in front of me, but I only was playing along with his script. He stopped for a couple of seconds and then he asked me: "How is this possible ...? Why are you waisting my time??"

Klathmon 10y ago
I've had them curse and scream at me for wasting their time. One time after a few minutes on a call he asked me what I saw on the screen and I just said "My wallpaper, with the word Ubuntu across the back" and he started shouting "fucking kill yourself" and hung up!
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  I'd love to do this, but they have my phone number. I really don't want to have to get a new one if they get pissed enough to make it unusable.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    They have little incentive to bother you once it's clear you aren't falling for it. The more of their time you waste, the more likely you'll get to some permanent blacklist which is good.

mhw 10y ago

I'm a TalkTalk customer, and was on the receiving end of this scam last year. I'm savvy enough to know that all the machines on our network were unlikely to be suffering from the problems they tried to describe (only one Windows laptop, and that was dual boot with Linux and carefully used). The most annoying thing (for us) was that they repeatedly called the home number at random intervals through the day until we actually picked up, and then you'd get complete silence most of the time. When they finally managed to get someone on the phone on their end it was easy enough to tell them they were scammers and get rid of them, but I can see how those who are less confident around technology could easily be taken in by them.

acomjean 10y ago
"you'd get complete silence most of the time" This is caller software. They figured it was too wasteful to have operators waiting for the phone for you to answer, so a machine dials you and when you answer its supposed to patch you into an operator. Obviously if they're are more calls then operators, you wait, or just hang up....
- eric_the_read 10y ago
  My (least) favorite variant of this is the telemarketers who wait for you to say "hello", then, after they quickly conference in the actual operator, they say, "Oh! Sorry, I was having a problem with my headset. Anyway, I'd like to ask you about..."

bjourne 10y ago

Someone tipped me about "Lenny": https://www.youtube.com/user/ToaoDotNet/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/user/ToaoDotNet/videos?view=0&sort=p... I'd love to know if it is possible to route calls from outside the US to him!

chaser7016 10y ago
That needs to be a service... if a phone call is received not listed in your contacts send them to Lenny.
iicc 10y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ > Instructions for use: > Transfer, conference, or forward your telemarketing calls to 1-347-514-7296 or sip:13475147296@in.callcentric.com. If you conference Lenny in, be sure to mute your phone. The rules: Lenny is for incoming, telemarketing calls only - not for annoying people, even if they deserve it. >Testing/experimental calls are fine, as long as they don't bother anyone.
- bjourne 10y ago
  I tried it and the recording says Lenny doesn't accept international calls.

neilwilson 10y ago

I happened to have the 400 series http errors open when one of these chappies rang up. I think I got to 'Request, Time Out' before he twigged.

mpswardle 10y ago

I got called by these guys last month. It was immediately obvious something was amiss as the line quality was absolutely dreadful, like virtually inaudible. The lady on the other end said i had been identified as someone from TalkTalk who would be having problems with my internet speed and they could help. She then asked me what OS i run, when i said OS X she hung up.

greatartiste 10y ago

My wife used to be a Talk Talk customer in the days of dial ins. Anyway 5 or so years back they suddenly started billing her credit card again monthly for the service she had cancelled years before. We couldn't stop this online as their system claimed no knowledge of her so I had to call the support numbers listed on the Talk Talk website. These went through to the usual Indian call centre but what went on there was very unusual. The first operator wanted my wife to post him her VISA statements to his home address (as they would get lost in the post if we sent them to Talk Talk). Another call brought an operator who said he could only trace what had happened if my wife gave him her VISA number and CVV over the phone !! I tried to call their Fraud Prevention office but got another Indian who wanted a VISA number before we could proceed. After multiple calls one day a call was answered by an Irish voice who was very apologetic and arranged a refund which arrived a few days later. Attempts to tell Talk Talks UK office about this went no where as all calls seemed to go to the same Indian call centre. Since I have read that Talk Talk had closed their Irish call centre for reasons of cost and now all support is from their Indian call centres. Avoid this company at all costs.

codedokode 10y ago

I wonder is not it bank's responsibility to refund the money that were stolen from customer's account? And don't they use SMS messages to confirm outgoing payments? But this case shows also that Internet banking UI are too complicated for some people and they don't realise what they are doing when following scammers' instructions.

user_rob 10y ago

TalkTalk need to do more to fix this issue as they were responsible for not keeping customer information secure. Admittedly they did give out free stuff last year as a sort of compensation. However if this annoyance is not resolved soon TalkTalk's reputation will slide further.

siddharthdeswal 10y ago

So yeah, I knew someone who worked at a place like this in their previous job. For him, it was just a job that paid really well. He frequently made more than Rs. 1 lakh per month, which is kind of a big deal in India when you're just a year or so out of an average, run of the mill college. Generally, these 'call centres' train employees to think that Americans are really stupid people who can be scared & fooled easily. Given the commissions he made, they were damn good at it, specially with the older people who would pay fairly large amounts every month or so to keep their computers virus free. He never thought he was in some scammy company though. For him, the callers were 'virus' hit users who were calling to get their computers repaired, and these guys just had to make quick, easy, FUD driven upsells. Oh, and these guys are unhappiest when they are made the manager, who get a very small commission from their team's upsells. I guess this meant that no one was looking for 'career growth'.

EJTH 10y ago

Tech scamming is an interesting phenomenon to say the least... I have been binge watching scambaiters on youtube recently. I can highly recommend it if you want an introduction to how these scammers work.

st3v3r 10y ago

We need to find this place, and issue drone strikes as soon as possible. If that is the only thing that Trump does with the rest of his presidency, he will go down as a better president than Obama.

duracel 10y ago

I can't believe how these companies do not get busted ever ? Englang is really unfair country for small business owners. More bigger corporation, less they pay tax, less they care of customers, less they protect your data...