When tech support is a scam: How India’s call-centre scams became big money

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How did the tech support scam industry get so big in India, and how do scammers get victims to fall for their ploy? The programme Undercover Asia finds out from a veteran.

GURUGRAM, India: After working “the whole night for five days”, Leo is off for a weekend getaway in Chandigarh city, in the foothills of the Himalayas.

“If you talk about scope, as in how much money there is to be made, it’s way too big for you to understand it and me to explain it.” Then the scammers got busy. They started by “stealing the databases of genuine from these big tech companies that they’d worked at”, says Poonam. “And started to set up these small centres where you already had that industry network.”

Scammers may also impersonate customer support staff of organisations such as banks, utilities and virtual currency exchanges, stated the FBI report.“Whether we like it or not, scams are an outcome of entrepreneurship,” says computer programmer and investigative journalist Samarth Bansal, who has reported on the scamming industry.

Mangal Rathi fell prey to an increasingly common scam in India that targets the users of mobile payment apps.“The police say that I can forget about getting my money back,” laments Rathi. “What am I supposed to do now?”It is the lack of consequences for scammers that angers scam baiters and recipients of scam calls.

He identified its mastermind and roped in a contact in the US to find out the number of complaints — 93 — lodged with the US’ Federal Trade Commission against the scamming company.

 

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