Feds Charge 61 People In Indian-Based IRS Phone Scam Case (consumerist.com)

BUL2294 writes: Following the arrests earlier this month in India of call center employees posing as IRS or immigration agents, USA Today and Consumerist are reporting that the U.S. Department of Justice has charged 61 people in the U.S. and India of facilitating the scam, bilking millions from Americans thinking they were facing immediate arrest and prosecution. "According to the indictment (PDF) -- which covers 20 individuals in the U.S. and 32 people and five call centers in India -- since about 2012 the defendants used information obtained from data brokers and other sources to call potential victims impersonating officers from the IRS or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services," reports Consumerist. The report adds: "To give the calls an air of authenticity, the organization was able to 'spoof' phone numbers, making the calls appear to have really come from a federal agency. The callers would then allegedly threaten potential victims with arrest, imprisonment, fines, or deportation if they did not pay supposed taxes or penalties to the government. In instances when the victims agreed to pay, the DOJ claims that the call centers would instruct them to go to banks or ATMs to withdraw money, use the funds to purchase prepaid stored value cards from retail stores, and then provide the unique serial number to the caller. At this point, the operations U.S.-based counterparts would use the serial numbers to transfer the funds to prepaid reloadable cards. The cards would then be used to purchase money orders that were transferred into U.S. bank accounts of individuals or businesses. To make matters worse, the indictment claims that the prepaid debit cards were often registered using personal information of thousands of identity theft victims, and the wire transfers were directed by the organizations using fake names and fraudulent identifications. The operation would then use 'hawalas' -- a system in which money is transferred internationally outside of the formal banking system -- to direct the pilfered funds to accounts belonging to U.S.-based individuals.

Comments

Re:Unwanted Competitor

[ShanghaiBill]

Too bad the police don't focus more on real crime. I received dozens of these IRS scam calls, all with thick Indian accents. Everyone I know received them as well. That means there were billions of calls being made. Yet, it took the feds years to do anything about it. And now they arrest 61 people. There is no way that all of those calls were placed by only 61 people.

Spoofing numbers

[AK Marc]

It's technically trivial to block that type of spoofing. The only hold-back is that there's no penalty for the phone companies that sell to the scammers. Charge their US provider with accessory to the crime, and fine them $100M and this could never happen again. Require that all CLID sent be a valid call-back for the number sent.

Yes, I know that this will be annoying for the outsourced call centers, where HP sells their call center to India and the Indian company calls an American with the CLID of the 1-800 number for HP, so the call looks like it's coming from the US, and if called back, gets to the right queue. But those edge cases don't justify allowing free range for the scammers.

Re:Spoofing numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all that hard to block spoofing and also allow HP to outsource its call center. You allow only HP to spoof lines as HP. Therefore in HP owns a call distribution node, any calls routed through it can use HP's number and caller ID, even if they come from India.
Under this system, no one would be able to spoof a number they don't actually own, so you can hold the caller responsible for the content of the calls. If they don't want to be held responsible, they'd best be careful not to route bad actors through their network! Phone scams would disappear overnight.

Re:How could you fall for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Old folks get scared and will do what they're told. As will non-tech-savy folk.

The bigger question is, when the hell are the telcos going to be forced to fix the spoofing problem.

Re:Unwanted Competitor

[freeze128]

The "REAL IRS" is a division of the U.S. government, and abides by the same rules of bureaucracy. Have you ever filed a form for your income tax in the United States? If you have, then you already know:

- The U.S. government does not perform legal notifications over the phone. They will send you a letter via US Mail. Sometimes 2 or 3, just to make sure you got it.
- The U.S. government knows you by your Tax ID number (or Social Security number). It's on every tax form you submit.
- The U.S. government absolutely DOES NOT REQUIRE payment by GREEN DOT CREDIT CARDS! They will accept personal checks, cashiers checks, and even direct withdrawals.
- The U.S. government doesn't use call centers in India for the IRS. The Internal Revenue Service is by definition "INTERNAL". There is absolutely no need to involve any other country in this aspect.

This is how you tell a scammer from the REAL IRS. If the person calling you seems to think differently about any of the above, HANG UP. It's a scam.

Let's go after the low-level phone people as well

[BUL2294]

In addition to those who perpetuated the scam, I feel that since the Thune, India police know the low-level employees who actually spoke from the scripts, I'd love to see the US indict those people, have them beg their families for Rupees to fight extradition in an Indian court, lose that fight, put them on a plane to the US, then let them beg their families again for $$$ for an expensive American lawyer, then rot in a Federal prison for the next 5+ years, then be banned from the USA for life over the felony conviction. With enough stories like that to go around, even destitute people will refuse to work for scammers--including those working for "Windows Company Support".

I have no sympathy for anyone at any level of this scam, including the low-level people following the scripts and making/answering the calls--those pretending to be IRS agents & scaring old ladies into giving up their life savings. These people know English and therefore know they are impersonating an agent of a foreign government (in this case, the big bad US Government, and its unlimited resources). It stands to reason that the foreign government in question might come after them one day. They probably also got a (teeny tiny) cut of each successful con, which makes this all the worse... Make an example out of them...