Tech YouTubers Are Stepping Up a War Against Indian Scam Call Centers (pcgamer.com) 59
An anonymous reader writes: Former NASA engineer Mark Rober builds some awesome stuff on his YouTube channel, like devious squirrel mazes, but his most popular video series is the annual glitter bomb, a beautifully over-engineered fake package that douses porch pirates with a shower of glitter and fart spray. In an unexpected twist, last year's glitter bomb video also helped police catch and arrest someone involved in a phone scam scheme, and Rober's spent the subsequent year digging into just how these phone scam operations work. In a new video he shows off the extensive results of that effort, including hiring double agents to infiltrate several phone centers in India and hacking their security camera footage. And of course he got off a stink bomb, too.
For Rober, this crusade started when he teamed up with another YouTuber, Jim Browning, to try to send a glitter bomb to a scammer operation. Browning's whole channel, which has 3.7 million followers, is devoted to identifying the call centers behind tech support scams and refund scams. These scams typically target the elderly and less computer-savvy folks and usually rely on the scammers gaining remote access to your computer and then tricking them into giving up personal information like their bank account login. 'Refund' scams make people believe they've been overcompensated with some bogus refund and trick them into sending cash in the mail to the scammers. The people who receive those cash packages in the United States are essentially underlings in these scam operations, so after getting a glitter bomb in their hands last year, Rober set his sights on the call centers themselves. With Browning's help, they were able to gain access to the CCTV of the infiltrated call centers, while another YouTube pair, Trilogy Media, traveled to Kolkata, India to run operations on the ground. Also worth checking out: Kitboga's YouTube channel.
For Rober, this crusade started when he teamed up with another YouTuber, Jim Browning, to try to send a glitter bomb to a scammer operation. Browning's whole channel, which has 3.7 million followers, is devoted to identifying the call centers behind tech support scams and refund scams. These scams typically target the elderly and less computer-savvy folks and usually rely on the scammers gaining remote access to your computer and then tricking them into giving up personal information like their bank account login. 'Refund' scams make people believe they've been overcompensated with some bogus refund and trick them into sending cash in the mail to the scammers. The people who receive those cash packages in the United States are essentially underlings in these scam operations, so after getting a glitter bomb in their hands last year, Rober set his sights on the call centers themselves. With Browning's help, they were able to gain access to the CCTV of the infiltrated call centers, while another YouTube pair, Trilogy Media, traveled to Kolkata, India to run operations on the ground. Also worth checking out: Kitboga's YouTube channel.
Re: I would like to propose an improvement. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to suggest replacing the skunk smell with Sarin. The delivery system would already be in place and we'd also get really entertaining video footage.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more than a little terrifying that you'd describe watching someone die from Sarin as "really entertaining".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: I would like to propose an improvement. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They will just open another one in 15 minutes, specially if you keep the head alive.
If you want to go illicit, just cut the telephone lines and interfere with mobile signals.
You can't do phone scams without phones.
Re: (Score:2)
True story (Score:5, Insightful)
I had received an unsolicited Tech Support call from India/Pakistan and was complaining about it at work
Indian co-worker said he used to run a remote tech support company and that I was over reacting...
Complete loss of trust ensued
Re:True story (Score:5, Insightful)
One interesting thing to come out of this is that the scam call centers run "legitimate" call centers as a front.
It's then an example of what I call the Tour de France effect. If there is enough competition, people have to cheat to stay competitive. The benefit of competition grows towards an asymptote, but the cost of keeping people honest (policing, drug testing etc.) grows linearly. You spend more and more to keep people honest, for less and less additional gain.
So part of why outsourcing call centers to India is so cheap, is that some have other ways to make their money. Even the honest ones (I'm assuming there are some) compete with the criminals driving prices down. All free-for-all competition will develop similar problems, whether it's global like tech outsourcing or local like taxi deregulation.
Re:True story (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely. My mom has been scammed once or twice a year for quite a long time (and not learning from it). It started by just the malware, and that malware pops up the window saying "hey, you've got a virus!", and then 5 minutes later a phone call "we're microsoft and detected a virus!" Then someone gets control and cleans out the virus and then volunteers to help manage the computer (for free sometimes, which my mom amazingly doesn't see as suspicious). And that's where it gets hard to show that it's a scam: they're actually managing the computer, they run the malware scans, they fix the problems with the printer, etc.
So once they had a scammer on the phone with the bank, and when the bank stepped him he started cursing. At that point, my mom pegged him as one of the bad guys. Finally, problem solved. But no... HE was the bad guy, yes, but the guy who was helping on the computer was a GOOD guy, and she could just not see that the two were related in any way even though it was obvious.
Locked the computer down and removed admin access, and that fixed up the biannual malware cleanup task. But she's still being scammed, even without the computer support but via email addresses that imply computer support. These are seriously evil people. One day I want to catch one one the phone and ask if his mother knows what an asshole he really is.
Re: (Score:2)
The son is going to work and getting a wage, probably with a commission, pro-rata. If some 'rich' person loses money, that's her problem.
The advice we need to tell people (and banks) is, if you owe someone money, demand a registered letter in snail-mail and promise to send a cheque back: No electronic transfers. You get a business address and the business gets proof of the recovery attempt. If the caller doesn't agree, hang-up: They don't get to make the rules.
Re:True story (Score:5, Interesting)
Kinda puts a bit of perspective on it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The reality is Americans are getting scammed because they are stupid enough to fall for such scams. That fact no one wants to accept here. The fool and their money are soon parted. Look at Wall Street. Majority of it is a scam too, but we call it "financial services".
Re: (Score:2)
Another scam never mentioned.. The "You're Hired" (Score:5, Interesting)
So back when I was in the market for a job I had my resume out everywhere. Several times a day I'd get calls from these guys. They'd ask really simple tech questions like, "Do you know DNS?" but would never elaborate on my answers like, "OK so let's say I wanted to add a WWW address to a domain name?" They'd ask like 10-15 of these questions.
After answering their stupid questions they'd usually come back, say I was qualified, rattle off some outrageous salary but at the end of the call would say, "All I need is the last 4 of your social so we can run a background check"
Instant red flag. I haven't even filled out an I-9 yet... A few times I gave them a fake last 4, and they'd immediately hang up.
I really wish one of these scambait tubers would go after these guys. They're preying on people needing work, and people are desperate to get hired sometimes. It seems like it would be easy to just build a fake resume/linkedin/dice profile and start applying for jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
You know they're all the same scam run by the same people right? Doesn't matter if it's from "Microsoft" or "the IRS" or "your kid's jailer". It's the same scammers run by the same people in the same call center.
The ones they get are the ones t
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The car warranty guys stopped calling my phone number. I figured out by the accents they were a US call-center. The last 2 cals went like this:
1) (heavy arabic accent) Salamalecum brother, the package was placed as instruct...
2) ALLAHU ACKBAR !
They must'a had a visit by the Party Van perhaps ?
Re: (Score:1)
The car warranty guys stopped calling my phone number. I figured out by the accents they were a US call-center. The last 2 cals went like this: 1) (heavy arabic accent) Salamalecum brother, the package was placed as instruct... 2) ALLAHU ACKBAR ! They must'a had a visit by the Party Van perhaps ?
Female: I ask about their breast size. Some hang up, some answer and then I explain how augmentation would help them land a job paying more as a stripper. For guys. substitute offering to sell penis enlargement pills... All I need is a CC. Other times I pull up a VIN from an auction site, so I have car and real VIN, and see how long I can play them for...
Re: (Score:2)
Fuck remorse. My parents are getting soft in their old age with the "well they need to make money in their country", and I have to remind them, "THEY ARE TRYING TO **STEAL** FROM US"
Re: (Score:1)
Has anyone here trolled the car-warranty-expired scammers? I love it when people waste the scammers' time and tease them with near miss purchases.
corrupt police (Score:5, Interesting)
The video has an eye opening part where Mark explains essentially that the police in Kolkata are corrupt (he does not come out and say that directly) and will tip-off the bad guys if you report them.
Infiltrating their businesses and exposing them was a great idea. I'm not normally a fan of vigilantism but when the authorities are on the take there are few options.
Re: (Score:2)
The video has an eye opening part where Mark explains essentially that the police in Kolkata are corrupt (he does not come out and say that directly) and will tip-off the bad guys if you report them.
Infiltrating their businesses and exposing them was a great idea. I'm not normally a fan of vigilantism but when the authorities are on the take there are few options.
I wonder if the cops know how much their daily rake is vs. what they get? Could be interesting...
Re: (Score:2)
They hack the scammers systems. Turn their bank accounts in to Bitcoin and throw away the keys to the wallet and be done with it. What they going to do call the corrupt police to get their money back? It's gone into a black hole (Oh boy has Brewsters Millions become as easy as can be). If they can't make money then no point in scamming people.
The alternative is find where the money came from and return as much as you can and then black hole the rest.
Re: (Score:2)
It is generally well known that most police in India are corrupt.
I been to holidays in India, in various places, and the only time I saw a policeman flag down a vehicle and actually ISSUE a paper summons for some offence or other was in Goa.Everywhere else, I have seen, it's on the spot cash transaction with no paperwork involved. And if you get to know the locals, you can hear some interesting stories about how the police act.
I assume Goa is a bit more cleaner, cos it has alot of tourists there on holiday
Pizza Hut (Score:3)
On the flip side, if you work at home and you get lonely, sometimes if you answer these spam calls and answer as a restaurant, i.e. Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Papa Johns, they might give you their credit card number. :-)
Not to mention, you might get to talk someone so you can get that additional human-to-human interaction.
Link to Video (Score:5, Informative)
Better Idea. (Score:2)
Find a way to force them to watch Bono LIVE.
Whack-a-mole (Score:2)
I love watching some of these videos but it truly shows how stupid the crooks are. It's just a game of whack-a-mole and they'll be in business in another week. Why? because it's profitable for them when they actually get somebody to fall for one of their scams.
Re: (Score:2)
The people getting scammed are also unbelievably stupid.
SANCTIONS (Score:2)
I want fucking sanctions levied on India for every call center they have operating. There should be a limit to how many MILLIONS of dollars they suck out of american (and other countries') citizens.
"Gee, sorry. 86% of the calls coming into this country are now triggering "SPAM ALERT" on our phones for some reason. Guess you don't need the other 14% to get through."
It melts my brain (Score:2)
This has become a national plague at least in the US to the point that apparently everyone gets several scam calls every day now, ranging from fake marketing to blatantly fraudulent phishing attempts.
It melts my brain how at least in the US, the fucking government and fucking phone companies are STILL not doing anything real about even limiting callers ability to spoof their own caller ID, let along preventing this shit outright. I bet if they were actually losing money, this shit would suddenly get
Scammer Payback (Score:2)
The story should have also mentioned the Scammer Payback [youtube.com] YouTube channel, who Mark Rober also mentions. I've watched numerous of the Scammer Payback videos and its interesting to not only see how the scammers operate, but how stupid they can be.
Sample from Yesterday (Score:1)
Fuck glitter bombs (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You're an asshole racist cunt. You get scammed because Americans are fucking stupid in the first place to fall for such scams.
I try to mess with them... (Score:1)
Similar Story (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Let's see: Summary mentions Jim Browning. Article mentions Jim Browning.
Re: (Score:2)
Tech YouTubers Helicopter in - and Away again (Score:1)