Indian Authorities Raid Fake Tech Support Rings After Tipoff From Amazon and Microsoft (theregister.com) 25
Acting on information from Microsoft and Amazon, India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has raided alleged fake tech support operators and other tech-related crims across the country. From a report: The Bureau shared news of a Thursday operation that saw it conduct 76 searches in relation to five cases. The Bureau stated its effort "was conducted in collaboration with national and international agencies, alongside private sector giants," and described two of its targets as international tech support fraud scams that "impersonated a global IT major and a multinational corporation with an online technology-driven trading platform."
The alleged scammers operated call centers in five regions of India and "systematically preyed on foreign nationals, masquerading as technical support representatives" for at least five years. The scammers sent users pop-up messages that appeared to come from multinational companies and advised of PC problems -- with a toll-free number at which assistance could be had. Victims who called the fakers had their PCs taken over, and were charged hundreds of dollars for a fix.
The alleged scammers operated call centers in five regions of India and "systematically preyed on foreign nationals, masquerading as technical support representatives" for at least five years. The scammers sent users pop-up messages that appeared to come from multinational companies and advised of PC problems -- with a toll-free number at which assistance could be had. Victims who called the fakers had their PCs taken over, and were charged hundreds of dollars for a fix.
It's a start (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a start, but the problem with outsourcing is that they can have referrals from the inside.
I gave a client the direct, real Amazon support number. While on the line, they were told to call a different number for their specific problem. Nearly got scammed out of hundreds.
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It's a start,
And seeing as they all paid the appropriate amount of tea money, they were all back at work by 9:00 AM IST the next day.
Not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
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No idea what the problem in the US is. My phone number is on the web and I got 2 (!) of these calls in 20 years. Maybe the pretty substantial fine that the phone company may have to pay if they do not identify and block these assholes after a reasonable delay makes a real difference?
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Possible solution (Score:2)
Why don't some hacktivist groups simply attack and take down the miscreant VoIP companies' systems? They could dox the owner of the companies while they are at it.
Surely the government knows who these VoIP operators are already, but they are unwilling to do anything about it for some reason.
Seems like they could be put out of business and kept out of business by non-government actors, pretty easily.
A second good question is: Why is the government invested in supporting these scammers?
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5 years before action taken? (Score:2)
FIVE years before action was taken?
Hmmm
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The level of scam calls originating out of India is insane. My office typically gets 300-400 scam calls on our public number every day. It's always someone with a thick Indian accent. Thanks to cheap VoIP services it's impossible to do something about this. I think the only way to fix the problem is a mass block of PSTN and VoIP services originating from India. That won't target the spammers but would possibly motivate the Indian government to take action against their scam call problem. Even if it means enforcing US laws over there when it comes to the telecom network.
Even here in Europe where we do enforce laws, they usually just set up a PABX inside the borders and use a VPN to connect to their call centre in India. So the calls come from somewhere like Manchester, but the end connection is in Bangalore.
The difference is, this can be cracked down on, these calls become subject to regulations (like a do not call list) and ultimately becomes expensive to cold call. Telcos can identify abusive clients and cut them off (keeping any monies already paid) and even pass the
It's only going to get worse (Score:1)
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Finally, a solution...all we need to do is figure out how to give them all jobs.
Now fix everything else? (Score:5, Insightful)
90% of the communication threads you'll run into from “Microsoft Support” look just as scummy as any Nigerian prince email. A good amount of the time they'll fail basic DNS validations, and in zero cases, has anyone from Microsoft ever attached a PGP key, even after being asked.
In most cases the communication is terrible, usually broken nonsense English that sounds like it's a mix of AI, Copy / Paste, and a person who doesn't actually know English. The support offered is almost always a joke, typically being a mix of broken forums posts, bad documentation links and jargon thrown in to make it the person sound “Donut” or “SCSI” (yes I intentionally picked a random word).
I've had threads that have gone on for weeks and even months, that have gone nowhere, because the people can't understand basic, and I mean basic, IT concepts. Most of the time it sounds like I'm in a “special” classroom, listening to people whose life highlight is learning to tie their shoes at 40.
I've had good support from Microsoft, but that's rare, less than 5% of the cases, the other 5% is just average support, which leaves 90% suspect. I would be amazed if Microsoft could even tell who is a “real” vs a “fake” support specialist, and the “special” part of “specialist” is because they're “special” people, not qualified.
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Among all the support I have received from Indians, about 5% is of any value whatsoever. The best cases are just getting refunds from Amazon. Tech support? 0%. I would say that if you reach a tech support person in India or Philippines, you should terminate immediately, because by far the best outcome is your time will be wasted,
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I've had threads that have gone on for weeks and even months, that have gone nowhere, because the people can't understand basic, and I mean basic, IT concepts.
Before we jump on the gross overgeneralization bandwagon let me stress that I work with a number of Indian engineers, and they are terrifically smart. But my company takes pains to vet the applicants in person and test their abilities before we hire anyone.
Microsoft, not so much. We also have had a support ticket open for months because their every response is like they're waking up to a new world each day, even when it's the same CSR from one call to the next. They give us pointless, time-consuming tasks a
Fix is to disallow number spoofing (Score:2)
Not sure why isn't there just a simple whitelist of phones that are allowed to pretend to be 911, and disallow spoofing to any other number
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Spoofing is used all over the place. When Google Voice sends incoming calls to my cell, they spoof the original caller's number. My business phone number is with one Voip provider but I have a two other providers that I can use for outgoing calls if the other one goes down.
STIR/SHAKEN is supposed to help with some of this, but providers are really slow moving on this.
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This allows for the 911 system to work,
Not really. The land line 911 system uses ANI [wikipedia.org], which is also the basis for billing information. Caller ID is based on CNAM and CID [wikipedia.org].You can bet that the telcos keep ANI pristine and unspoofable to the greatest extent possible. Because that's where money comes from. On the other hand, they have no motivation to clean up the shit-show that is CID.
Simple solution: give me the ANI and the associated location data for my caller ID display. This won't happen because that's an extra service they sell. You have a p
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Fix will never happen. SCTP is a dumpster fire.
Awwww.... (Score:2)
Bob from Microsoft Bangalore is no longer gonna call me to tell me there is a virus on my PC?
I'm gonna miss him.
Scam busters have always had their addresses (Score:2)
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The problem has been the paid off authorities and the idea that ripping off North Americans is good for India's GDP.
That is why my brain read the headline as, "Indian Authorities Fake Raid Tech Support Rings...."
Real Tech Support (Score:2)
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Asks if you've tried rebooting. Have you tried rebooting? Let's try rebooting.
Rebooting won't solve your problem.
We need to begin by looking at your desktop.
Do you see "any dex" there?