5 ms·

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 stil

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..
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Am I to understand that your argument is while India has a culture of corruption on the lower levels at the highest levels of government and business they do not?
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.

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..
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Am I to understand that your argument is while India has a culture of corruption on the lower levels at the highest levels of government and business they do not?

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.