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After Microsoft Complaints, Indian Police Arrest Tech Support Scammers At 26 Call Centers (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: New Delhi police have arrested 63 suspects in the last two months working and operating 26 call centers that were engaging in tech support scams, posing as tech support staff at Microsoft, Google, Apple, and other major tech companies. The raids on Delhi-based call centers have taken place over the last two months, Microsoft said. Police first raided 10 call centers and arrested 24 people in October, and then raided 16 other call centers and made 39 more arrests this week.
Microsoft said its staff received over 7,000 victim reports associated with the 16 call centers raided this week, from over 15 countries. Users reported paying between $100 and $500 for unnecessary tech support services and products. The raids resulted in the seizure of substantial evidence including call scripts, live chats, voice call recordings and customer records from tech support fraud operations, Microsoft said. The Delhi police's crackdown on tech support call centers came after Microsoft filed legal complaints earlier this year. Microsoft has been collecting customer complaints about tech support scams since 2014, via its "Report a technical support scam" portal.
Microsoft said its staff received over 7,000 victim reports associated with the 16 call centers raided this week, from over 15 countries. Users reported paying between $100 and $500 for unnecessary tech support services and products. The raids resulted in the seizure of substantial evidence including call scripts, live chats, voice call recordings and customer records from tech support fraud operations, Microsoft said. The Delhi police's crackdown on tech support call centers came after Microsoft filed legal complaints earlier this year. Microsoft has been collecting customer complaints about tech support scams since 2014, via its "Report a technical support scam" portal.
Preying on old people. They should all die in a fire.
Like this one time time
Are you not the country that prides itself of not wanting a large government intervening in citizens affairs, and who prefers everything to be done by private companies?
Having setup the Lenny bot on my phone switch for a way to deal with these guys, looks like it will be a while before I get to hear Lenny drive them to despair again. The last recording I got it sounded like the scammer was about to cry "Please sir, just turn on your computer...".
You can expect that to be good for a week or two, before they are replaced.
That turns out not to be true. Numerous scams have been traced to Indian sources. CBC Marketplace actually traced one group of scammers right to the actual physical call centre address. The relevant Indian police politely told them to piss off even though they had actual evidence.
I suspect the actual reason action happened in this case is that Microsoft provided sufficient "consideration" which exceeded similar "consideration" from the scammers.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.