Telephone scams in which callers claimed to be Microsoft ‘security experts’ offering to fix your computer first surfaced over five years ago. They’re still around and seemingly undergoing something of resurgence. The scammers can’t fix anything they just want your money. It sometimes seems that every other major business on the planet has outsourced its service centre to India. Banks, insurance companies, internet service providers, utility companies, even railway ticket booking services. It’s hardly surprising then when you call some company and you’re greeted with a distinctive Indian accent greeting you with ‘Hello I’m David’, or ‘Peter’ or ‘Sonja how can I help you?’ We all know that they’re actually a Deepak, Pradeep or Surita, but we go along with the game. For sure, there’s been a bit of an outbreak in the past when it’s been discovered that customer data has been lifted wholesale – think addresses, credit card numbers and so on – from some of these service centres. There’s usually a lot of noise and then it dies down, as either the company pulls out and brings its call centre operations back to the country of origin or tighter safeguards are put in place. How to spot the phone scam Thick accents – a give away However, the idea of call centres based in India have become so accepted and part of everyday life that if we receive a phone call from someone with a thick Indian accent we almost assume it’s a legitimate call. But often they’re simply telephone scams trying to get some information out of you. One of the most laughable is someone calling claiming to be from a mobile phone company and they’ve got a seriously good deal for you and if you’re interested all you need to do is give them your bank account details to get the ball rolling. Yeah, right, as they say. A good response is to tell them to hold on while you go and dig out your bank account number. Simply place the phone next to a speaker and then crank up the volume to a seriously deafening decibel range. Give it a few minutes, turn down the volume and pick up the phone. There’ll be...
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