Indian employees of outsourcing company in India are fraudulently cheating Americans

India Daily ^ | Apr. 9, 2005

[jb6]

Indian employees of outsourcing company in India are fraudulently cheating Americans and American companies Staff Reporter Apr. 9, 2005

Many American and European companies have gone to India to save some money and utilize the work of talented Indians. But little did they know how they and their clients in America will be systematically ripped off by fraudulent cheats working for the outsourcing companies in India.

Western companies are cheated in many different ways. For example a small Web Services company from America established a subsidiary in India with a local partner. They were being billed every month for the work done by this Indian company in Kolkata the eastern city in West Bengal. The employees never worked with diligence. They as a matter of fact ran their own insurance agency using the company phone and facilities. When the American company questioned about low output and lack of quality, the employees gave excuse that politicians in West Bengal were corrupt and most of the days were either totally closed due to general strike or it was a local holiday. Later it was found that the employees embezzled funds for their personal purposes, inflated bills, fraudulently transferred money to their own bank accounts and stole computer hardware.

There are other grand larceny which is committed every day. Lack of regulation, naivety of American companies and “quick money and taking advantage when possible” attitude of the local people are the root cause of these problems.

What happened in CitiBank is not an isolated case either. It's not the first BPO-related crime in the country, and it's definitely not going to be the last. The Pune police has unearthed a racket involving former call centre employees who siphoned out about $3.5 lakh (around Rs 1.5 crore) from the Citibank accounts of four Americans and went on a spending spree, buying cars and mobile phones. Twelve persons have been arrested. Police commissioner DN Jadhav said the 30-year-old main accused, Ivin Thomas, illegally procured the Personal Information Number (PIN) of the US nationals while working with a call centre in the city. After quitting the BPO last December, he and his friends opened bank accounts using false names and used the Internet to transfer the money from the US accounts to their accounts. The police refused to divulge the name of the BPO, which is based in Bangalore. The transaction was made between January and March this year, the police commissioner said, adding that the police swung into action after the bank registered a formal police complaint.

[Strategerist]

India Daily has a history of completely fabricating stories. Every single "fact" in the above may be wrong.

Also, has anyone run any sort of ISP trace on them? Google claims they're in New Jersey.

[Captainpaintball]

The schadenfreude section of my cerebral cortex kind of hopes this is true. Sue me.

[jb6]

Indian call centre staff in $350,000 Citibank theft

By Andy McCue, silicon.com

The Indian offshore outsourcing industry has been rocked by the revelation that call centre workers in Pune have been arrested for allegedly looting $350,000 from the accounts of Citibank's US customers.

The three staff are former employees at Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) firm Mphasis, which runs call centre services for Citibank's US customers in Bangalore and Pune. Nine other gang members were also arrested.

The former Mphasis staff used their positions dealing with Citibank's customers to trick four of them into giving out the PIN numbers to their accounts, allowing the staff to transfer funds into the bank accounts of other gang members.

The fraud was only discovered when the customers noticed the money missing from their accounts and Citibank subsequently traced it back to the Mphasis operations in Pune.

Mphasis said it "regretted" the incident, but maintained that its security procedures are adequate.

A statement said: "While we are unhappy with the incident itself, we are at the same time quite pleased that detection systems worked. While such incidents unfortunately do happen everywhere, timely and exemplary enforcement ensures that no-one needs fear that culprits or potential culprits can get away and the reputation and credibility of the entire system is actually preserved and enhanced."

But research analyst Forrester claimed the breach will have "far-reaching" negative connotations for the offshore BPO industry and said that the high turnover of Indian call centre staff makes it increasingly difficult to adhere to security processes and sufficiently check backgrounds.

A Forrester research note said: "While the center in Pune was BS 7799 and CMM Level 5 certified, the breach still occurred. Clients and prospects should not be lulled into security complacency by the laundry list of certifications or process changes that suppliers roll out. Customers are going to have to implement their own aggressive requirements, such as eliminating writing instruments in their offshore centers and auditing bi-monthly to ensure that the vendor is following mandated processes."

Forrester also claimed offshore call centre growth could drop by as much as a third because of security concerns, regulatory pressure and a consumer backlash.

No-one at Citibank was available for comment.

[jb6]

bump, it is true.

[kimosabe31]

Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch than those outsourcing american jobs.

[antceecee]

I called to try and make a phone payment on my Chase card a few months ago and got an India call center (I assumed this because everyone I spoke to had heavy Indian accent). They asked me for personal info on my SS# DL# etc.. all info that they have on file. Then they said they needed other info answered or they would put my account on hold and negatively impact my credit! All this over wanting to find out about making a pmt by phone or online. Account in good standing, I have good credit. I asked to speak to supervisor and they transferred me to someone named Jose. I told them if they needed any other info they could mail me a questionaire. They refused and said they were going to note on my acct. that I was uncooperative. They would not transfer me to any other supervisor. Nothing was ever done. There is no 'note' on my account and they sent me nothing by mail. The entire experience was surreal.

[cryptical]

How can you cheat someone in a non-fraudulent manner?

[Reeses]

We recently advertised for a computer contractor. Many of the Indian resumes looked incredible, almost too good, masters degrees, etc. They all flamed out quickly during the technical screening. It turns out their resumes were fraudulent. If this had been for borrowing money rather than earing it, these people would be facing jail time. Why is this not a crime?

Note to IT managers: save yourself a lot of grief and have one of your technical people give a 5 minute phone screen.

[Paloma_55]

"They asked me for personal info on my SS# DL# etc.. all info that they have on file."

If it really was Chase, they would have the info and usually only ask for the last 4 digits of your SSN to verify you are the correct person.

I would be real concerned that your ID is out there.

[ikka]

A friend of my wife's is a cell phone engineer and deals with folks from India on a regular basis, ones that are here in the USA that is. The stories she tells...

[jb6]

pray tell, I'm all ears.

[Enterprise]

Scary article, but not unanticipated. Do what you can folks to get those credit cards paid down or paid off.

[PetroniusMaximus]

***fraudulently cheating***

... as opposed to honestly cheating?

[Enterprise]

Yes, I agree with jb6 - we're listening.

[A. Pole]

Of course. Only a conspiracy freak would hestitate to transfer his medical and financial data to India or China. They are safer there.

[Southack]

"A Forrester research note said: "While the center in Pune was BS 7799 and CMM Level 5 certified, the breach still occurred."

I've seen CMMl5 certifications given out like candy by offshore organizations to fellow offshore firms, typically family-related (e.g. brother or cousin in one place certifies company where relative works). What you *don't* see from those offshore operations are CMMl5 audits 6 months and 1 year after certification by a different 3rd party.

Offshore technical resumes are commonly exagerated, too. Heck, I had one young guy list several different MS sample programs from an old 1994 release as applications that he had written! He would have been about 9 or 10 and had never been to the U.S. when those sample programs were first distributed in commercial shelfware... Sheesh, if you're gonna lie, at least make it believable.

[BurbankKarl]

duh!

[Peace4EarthNow]

A friend of my wife's is a cell phone engineer and deals with folks from India on a regular basis, ones that are here in the USA that is. The stories she tells...

I'd be interested in hearing those stories, if you don't mind sharing them....

[OKIEDOC]

Amen brother to that.

Have you ever tried to get one of these offshore people to give you help and if you did , did they correct the problem.