Posted on 04/14/2005 3:43:30 PM PDT by TexKat
BOMBAY (Reuters) - Indian police have arrested 16 people in an investigation into the fraudulent transfer of more than $400,000 from Citibank customer accounts in the United States to bogus accounts in India, officials said on Thursday.
Investigators said employees of a business process outsourcing company (BPO) persuaded Citibank customers to disclose information that would make their accounts accessible.
"During our investigations, we found that the BPO company's employees sweet talked the customers to give them their PIN (personal identification numbers)," Sanjay Jadhav, assistant commissioner of police of the crime branch in the western Indian city of Pune, told Reuters.
Jadhav said 16 people have been arrested so far and investigators looking for $350,000 in funds missing from four customers in the United States have discovered a separate $76,000 transferred illegally.
The money was transferred to accounts opened by the accused in Pune, he said.
The incident comes as several foreign companies are stepping up the outsourcing of backoffice functions to Indian companies who offer them tremendous cost savings by employing low-cost staff.
Jadhav declined to name the BPO involved but a spokesman of software services company MphasiS BFL Ltd said the fraud involved three of its former employees, who had left the company at the end of December, and a current employee.
"The initial investigations reveal that MphasiS' security procedures appear to have worked and the fraud may not have been prevented as unfortunately some customers provided their passwords," MphasiS said in a statement posted on its Web site.
"The accused individuals had no prior criminal record and passed all reference checks," it said, adding that it was working closely with Citibank and the police to support the investigation.
A Citigroup spokesman in New York said the four customers who lost funds in the fraud had been "made whole."
another direct benefit of shipping American jobs overseas, yes?
Ping
This is just the tip of the iceberg. They have access to all of our information. These corporations are going to regret outsourcing before it's all over. Unfortunately, so are we. Idenity theft went way up in the last couple of years.
Well, heading out to my wife's ESL English class in a few minutes.Back in a couple hours or so. :)
Outsourcing customer *data* and control of customer data is a very bad thing; completely different from outsourcing snippets of desired programming code.
Code needs only to be monitored/reviewed once, after all...but once customer data is outsourced, the game is pretty much up.
And that's the magician's slight of hand. Once companies started outsourcing more than partial coding projects, what was once manageable suddenly became unsafe.
"Indian Police Arrest 16 in U.S. Money Transfer Fraud"
Bump
Obviously the rocket scientist contingent.
Code needs only to be monitored/reviewed once, after all...but once customer data is outsourced, the game is pretty much up.
And that's the magician's slight of hand. Once companies started outsourcing more than partial coding projects, what was once manageable suddenly became unsafe.
Identity theft is out of control and I'd be willing to bet you that the hundreds of thousands of people who have had their identities stolen are coming as a result of outsourced credit card and bank information. Dianne Feinstein says there were over 9 million identities stolen in 2004.
NEW YORK Apr 14, 2005 — Data apparently stolen from the popular clothing retailer Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. is forcing banks and credit card issuers to notify thousands of consumers that their credit-card information may have been exposed.
HSBC North America, a division of London-based HSBC Holdings PLC, has begun notifying holders of the HSBC-issued, General Motors-branded MasterCard that criminals may have obtained access to their credit card information and that the cards should be replaced.
HSBC spokesman Stephen E. Cohen said Thursday that "we began doing it last week, and we are continuing."
He said that about 180,000 GM-branded card holders are affected.
Neither Cohen nor spokesmen for MasterCard International would identify the retailer by name.
The security breach was reported in Thursday's editions of The Wall Street Journal, which quoted "people with knowledge of the matter" as saying the data was stolen at Polo Ralph Lauren.
A spokeswoman at Polo Ralph Lauren, which is headquartered in New York, said "we have no comment at the moment" on the report. She asked that her name not be used.
In morning trading, Polo Ralph Lauren shares dropped 38 cents, or 1 percent, to $38.08 on the New York Stock Exchange.
It was unclear how many other cards might be at risk, but both Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard the nation's largest credit card associations were reported to be dealing with Polo Ralph Lauren on the matter.
MasterCard said in a statement that it was informed of a possible security breach "of transaction data associated with a U.S.-based retailer" in January 2005 and had launched an investigation immediately. The statement said banks that are members of the card association were notified.
"Investigations into this incident by MasterCard, law enforcement and other parties are ongoing," the statement said.
There was no immediate comment from Visa USA.
In response to a reporter's query, Citigroup Inc., the nation's largest financial institution, confirmed that it currently was "notifying some customers who we think may be at risk." The New York-based bank said it takes "appropriate action" when notified by Visa or MasterCard of potential security breaches, but gave no other details.
HSBC to move 6,000 jobs to India, China
March 02, 2004 15:00 IST
HSBC Holdings Plc, the world's second-largest bank by market value, said it plans to move 6,000 jobs to support centers in India, China and Malaysia by the end of 2004 as it shifts work to lower-cost sites in Asia.
At the end of 2003, the lender employed 8,000 people at such centers. HSBC Holdings chief executive officer Stephen Green said he expects the process to 'continue.'
''It's our duty towards our shareholders and frankly also to the markets in which we operate to be making use of our resources in the most optimal way and one of the things we do is to create jobs in environments where there's a shortage of them,'' said Green at a press conference in Hong Kong.
HSBC said on Monday that its 2003 profit rose 41 per cent to $8.77 billion, buoyed by its purchase of Household International Inc. Last year, and other financial institutions are moving jobs to Asia, where labour is cheaper, to save on costs.
Last year, the British lender said it plans to cut 4,000 jobs in the United Kingdom and move the positions to Asia.
It opened its first processing center in Guangzhou, China, in 1996 and started moving back-office employees to India in 2000.
ping
Bumping this one!
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