comment: >
  
  There needs to be an app where you just hit a button then the scammer’s call gets forwarded to another scammer call center.
context: “Hello this is the IRS calling. The Police are on the way to arrest you, please give me your SSN and wire us $10,000 to avoid going to jail” >
  
  No it’s gift cards. The irs demands iTunes gift cards. >
  
  My IRS guy wanted steam gift cards, must be a regional thing >
  
  Really? Well I'm from Utica and I've never heard of the IRS wanting Steamed giftcards. >
  
  Steamed gift cards are more of an Albany currency. >
  
  My brain prompted, "it's a regional dependency." >
  
  The world telephone network is hoplessly outdated. It should not be possible to spoof phone numbers. >
  
  Fixing that would fix so many scam related problems. >
  
  The people being scammed are usually elderly. The phone call could literally be labelled "SCAM", and they would still answer, wondering who it is. >
  
  It is so cruel how they attack the elderly. They called my grandfather saying I was in jail and he needed to bail me out. This man was a genius and self made businessman in his youth but we all lose mental fortitude with age. He was so scared I was in jail and was only stopped when his son came and said I'm fine and to call me. I was in class so I didn't answer for a while so despite my mom's assurances I was fine he wouldn't stop panicking till he heard my voice. They are cruel and attack the emotions of the vulnerable. >
  
  They called my grandma years ago (local scam not in the US) and she was like, what did he do, and they guy said attempted robbery and she was like, 'ok leave him there, he needs to learn a lesson' >
  
  They told my grandma I was arrested with a trunk full of drugs and needed bail that night. I hope that guy gets anal warts. >
  
  The worst part is when you call these assholes out their reaction is just “fuck you, you’re and American you’re rich, you don’t need your money and you deserve it anyways.” >
  
  Ugh, this shit is the worst. I got called by someone claiming to be "from Internal Revenue Service" and was bored so I let the call go to a person. The first thing I say is 'Just to confirm, you are claiming to be a representative of the Internal Revenue Service' and I am just met with a curt "Fuck You" and the call ending. Like it's my fault they are shitty >
  
  I got one who was going to “remove my credit card debt.” I took him for a ride as I went to “search for my wallet” and get it out of my other pair of pants (totally, for real), and revealed that I “only” had $4,000 in credit card debt (not sure what number is normal to these folks), and he eventually figured out that I was yanking his chain. Dude kept going “fuck you, sir! Fuck you, sir! Hang up, sir! Fuck you, sir!” As I laughed hysterically going, “awwww, does baby hate it when he gets cawwed on his widdle scams? Is baby sad he couldn’t steal my cweddit cawd? Poor baby, oooo!”
  My other favorite is to just say “your parents lie about you when friends ask how you’re doing. That’s how disgusted they are with you.” Buddy of mine is Hindi and has assured me that that cuts pretty deep in Indian culture. >
  
  I had one threaten to rape me at my home address. I pretended to be a homosexual who would be thrilled by such an encounter. Not that there's anything wrong with being a homosexual. >
  
  Unfortunately it also happens at businesses.
  I work for a state college IT and we did a fake scam phishing email to the whole college, after everyone completed mandatory training on phishing. We do this every year. The email we send out is as obviously scammy as possible, including spelling errors and not being related to anything about the college itself.
  We still had over 100 faculty/staff members open the email, follow the fake scam link, and put in their credit card information on the page that popped up.
  It's a big problem and an even bigger liability. Wish we could just outright fire everyone who fell for that scam, because those folks are those who follow links that get their entire computer randomware'd. We have a room in the college with all the hard drives we have had to pull because they were locked down with ransomware. >
  
  100 COLLEGE faculty and staff fell for it!? Damn >
  
  Yea that isn't good sign for our education system that professors and the like are that gullible >
  
  From my experience they think they are so much more brilliant than everyone else that it’s inconceivable they could get scammed. >
  
  I don’t understand how anyone thinks an email asking for them to go type credit card information in somewhere is legit. Would you give that to someone who knocked on the door or stopped you on the sidewalk because they say they are the government or some shit? No. Then why are you doing it for an email?
  It's inconceivable. Especially the farther along in time we get and how people in their 40s and 50s now have been using computers their entire lives. This isn't like 2002 where most people over like age 40 had extremely poor tech literacy because they didn't use it growing up. 
  Then again I'm always blown away that someone in their 30s or 40s now doesn't know how to copy and paste text. It's like not knowing how to use a telephone in 1980. >
  
  It’s amazing. The ex girlfriend of my friend bill who had recently passed away sent $10k in gift cards to India. She was like 65 and of sound mind. She told me about it a few days later. I was like, Kate you know that I work in fraud and AML! Why didn’t you call me! >
  
  When I get a call where they start off immediately (with a thick Indian accent) how much tax liability is dangerous and failure to reply is punishable by law, then ask me to confirm my name... Just say "well, you called me, therefore you know my name and liability, please tell me who I am?" and they just hang up. So rude, was in the mood to have fun. >
  
  If you’re hungry for more there’s a couple YT channels dedicated purely to trolling these clowns and wasting hours of their time so that they can’t steal from actual people. One even hacked into their security cams and coordinated with the Indian police to arrest the whole call center. >
  
  Jim Browning
  Trilogy Media
  Kitboga
  Scammer Payback >
  
  Scammer Payback gets downright mean sometimes...it's great, and entirely deserved. >
  
  Agreed. Considering that a group of scammers took my grandpa's entire life savings (not an insignificant amount of money) under the guise of him winning a 5 million PCH sweepstakes, and being a large contributor to his passing, I want nothing but cruelty for these scammers. >
  
  I keep getting Indian IRS calls lol. “This is John smith from the IRS” the names are always hilarious stereotypes. >
  
  not as egregious as that, but i recently got one from "the office of visa and mastercard" - who knew they have one office for the two monster credit card companies!  i told the scammer that and he proceeded to curse me out. >
  
  You'd think he'd be grateful for the info smh. >
  
  I, for one, would like to normalize not telling scammers about the obvious mistakes they are making. >
  
  It's not really a mistake. Most people who are sharp enough to realise that those two wouldn't share an office wouldn't fall for the scam anyways. Name dropping both companies prevents people from retorting that they don't have that type of card, which is a much bigger concern among people gullible enough to fall for it. Mass-scale scams often do things like that to sacrifice believability for efficiency. >
  
  We all might wonder how anyone can be gullible enough to fall for these. But seniors with cognitive decline are easy targets. >
  
  Very much so.  My mom's phone would get these all the time before we got spam filtering enabled.  Even now sometimes one gets through.
  If I end up talking to them, I ask them how they sleep at night doing what they're doing?  How would they feel if it was their parent being scammed?  And so forth.  That at least makes me feel better when they hang up on me even if it doesn't do much else. >
  
  If you wanna feel even better, look up Kitboga on YouTube. He spends hours, sometimes days, wasting scammers time using fake bank accounts and voice acting. It's a hell of a watch >
  
  There are a few others out there that play the scammer’s games to raise hell on them. Scammer payback is actually hacking the scammer’s computers and deleting all of their computer data while also coping it to give to the authorities and try and contact the victims to save them before they send off money. >
  
  I’ve been bingeing Scammer Payback for a few days. I think he’s not actually hacking anything, he’s just using a feature or AnyDesk or TeamViewer or whatever remote desktop software they use to gain access to the scammer’s computer and delete their files. He put out a video where he deleted 300,000 files from a scammer’s computer. That could’ve been tens of thousands of people saved.
  Edit: In another video he says "Since a lot of scammers watch this channel, we're not going to show you exactly how we gain access to their systems." So we don't know how they gain access to their systems exactly. >
  
  How does he get remote access to the scammers computer? Wouldn't the scammer have to allow that on his end? >
  
  That exactly what happens. He will get the connection request from the scammer on his virtual machine, then he sends a connection request of his own to the scammer's computer from either another VM or his main computer, while saying something like "it's asking for confirmation". The idea is that the scammer doesn't read his pop-up top closely and just assumes it's the confirmation request.
  If the scammer denies the request, he says something like "it says confirmation request cancelled", and tries again. If the scammer accepts the connection request, he quickly accepts the request on his VM. What you end up with is his computer remotely connected to the scammer's computer which is remotely connected to his VM. From there he can start downloading, deleting, and uploading files to the scammer's computer. >
  
  Last week I got a call from one, and I took him for a ride for a half hour before asking him if he was familiar with the word pierogi and he instantly told me to fuck my father and hung up.
  If you’re unfamiliar, Scammer Payback on YouTube is a riot and a half. >
  
  Pierogi are delicious. He’s missing out. >
  
  They do this stuff openly. They are located in proper offices and pay off the police.
  We really need to change things to make these scams very, very hard to do. >
  
  I try to keep these guys on the phone as long as I can and when they realize what I’m doing they get so ridiculously vulgar. “Where’s your husband, is he ready to fuck your mouth? Can we both fuck you?!” followed by hysterical laughter — recent fav of mine. >
  
  I usually get them to small talk about sports and since it's India it inevitably leads to cricket. Then I tell them the Pakistani cricket team is way better than the Indian one.
  They usually lose their shit at that. >
  
  That is freaking genius, might have to borrow it! >
  
  But... we have Kitboga >
  
  Just wait a moment >
  
  Ma'am. WHY YOU REDEEM? >
  
  You DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT. M... ma'am listen to me. LISTEN TO ME.
  HELLO
  hElLo
  HELlo HELLOOOO
  DO NOT PRESSS THAT BUTTON
  aAAAAhhH... benchot. >
  
  that 'benchot" always get me, reeks sheer frustration and defeat! >
  
  Same thing happening in Australia guys, sickening to scam the elderly, rotten fucks. >
  
  Yeah but rookie number compared to the pokies scamming pensioners out of every last cent >
  
  
  "it may not be a national security concern yet, but the reputation (of a country) is involved, and we don’t want India to suffer on that count,” Daud told the publication.
  
  I don't know but seems like people on internet already make that kind of stereotype, hopefully they still manage to catch those criminals. >
  
  Most regions in India where it is popular (Kolkata) are corrupt and the police take bribes to look the other way. It will never stop unless the US takes action. Currently, education and spreading information is the only solution. >
  
  Which isn’t a solution because Indian scammers target the elderly. >
  
  They got pretty good before I moved. I mean, until I heard them speak. Come on now you aren't "Mike". But the number would be from somewhere important so I'd answer. Dudes got lazy after a while and started spoofing my own number and that's just insulting. I definitely didn't call myself.. or did I? Guess I should answer >
  
  Vsauce music starts playing >
  
  I always wondered why the IRS only hired Indian accented collection agents!  I keep telling them I only deal in gold and they need to show up on my doorstep to collect! >
  
  Time to call Mark Rober again.
  Help us u/_scienceftw_ you're our only hope. >
  
  Mark should do something on it as he gets a lot of attention.  There are numerous people on YouTube that expose this stuff and get people arrested, but it’s like a hydra and keeps spawning.  Educating people on these types of scams is the best way to stop it. >
  
  He did. About a year ago. Teamed up with some of the other YouTubers who do this all the time and I think got a few centers shut down, but they probably just re opened elsewhere. >
  
  Yeah Jim Browning was getting fed up with the police not doing anything and started telling the scammers parents what they were doing. >
  
  Probably more effective! >
  
  It's absolutely time to end the ability to spoof phone numbers. >
  
  The newest phishing scam I keep seeing is that a “legit” company (DoorDash, Pinterest, another large American corporation) has emailed me out of the blue with a job offer for an upper management position! And all I have to do is click on the link to apply! 
  Not gonna lie, I almost fell for that one.
  Almost. >
  
  Let's put the blame where it is really due: on our telecomm companies. They allow these scam calls to pass through their networks unimpeded even though they have the ability to stop it. FTC should start fining them for ever scam and robo call, then you'd see this shit disappear overnight. >
  
  The companies themselves are burning money trying to solve this problem
  It's just too fucking easy to spoof a phone number and VOIP tech is used too regularly in all types of businesses for them to start banning calls from it >
  
  Get the Indian government to crack down on these scammers and reimburse the victims. >
  
  Can't explain that to seniors with dementia. Indian government is corrupt so put enough pressure on that they have no choice. >
  
  Not only that, but I think they answer out of loneliness and for a bit of excitement.
  My dad has some cognitive decline, but he's not diagnosed with dementia. I think he picks up because he just wants something to do (also, before anyone calls me a bad daughter because my senior dad is lonely, I do everything I can to get him to participate more in life. I even moved him in with me but ended up in a mental health crisis because I'm not equipped to handle it. Now he lives in a senior apartment with activities and groups and still won't do anything but watch trash tv and drink beer. Trust me, it breaks my heart to think my dad is just sitting around, doing nothing and waiting to die). 
  Anyways, he tells me that someone claiming to be from Social Security called but that he figured out it was a scam, so he got into an argument with them, or someone called from Medicare, but he figured out it was a scam, so he....etc.
  I keep telling him that the more he picks up, the more they're going to call and that if it's important, they'll leave a message. He continues to pick up, and I continue to hope that he stays the course of not giving out personal info. Now if I could only get him to stop blowing his savings on Instacart and stupid mobile game transactions... >
  
  Just for the record, no one with elderly parents or really any experience with the elderly would blame you for any decision you've made. It's extremely difficult. Just based on everything you've said here, it sounds like you are extremely involved with him in doing the best you possibly can. >
  
  Google's Pixel phones feature call screening. It's single handley one of the best features in any smartphone. If the individual calling can't say who they are. I have no reason to talk to them. >
  
  Honestly it's great, I just smack that screen button anytime I don't know who's calling >
  
  This stuff is just going to get worse. The way deepfakes and voice mimicking software is advancing it is just a matter of time before Grandma is receiving actually video chat calls by someone who looks AND sounds like their grandkid in real time. Anyone who has much of a social media presence will be able to be impersonated with scary accuracy. >
  
  One of the big problems is that the scammers pay off the local police to turn a blind eye. So to fix the problem of scam call centres you have to address the problem of institutionalized corruption in the Indian police. >
  
  I started answering scam calls. When I get a live person I just keep repeating “are you circumcised?” to men and women. Most just hang right up. Some get angry and try to yell at me. It’s fucking hilarious. One person even tried to tell me that I had called her and that she was going to report me for harassment. Such morons. Indian men really don’t like to be asked about their junk. They especially don’t like it if you start asking if other men in their families are circumcised. “How about your dad and nephews? They circumcised too?” In the rare instance you get someone who thinks they’re gonna play along just ask them to send you a picture of their circumcision, “you have my number, send me a pic right now”. Click.
  Any way, after I started doing this I noticed the amount of scam calls I get started to decrease. >
  
  Highly recommend you learn basic Hindi. I have been answering every spam call. And once I start speaking Hindi slurs the second I get a real operator, they get so pissy. 
  I'm the scam caller vigilante and also call them using /r/scamnumbers.
  Fuckers are ruining the reputations of India >
  
  “What was I thinking? You can’t be circumcised if you’re a Napoonsak.”
  Excellent! >
  
  Can someone please train an Kitboga AI and unleash it on these scammers. I would pay good money for that. >
  
  Kitboga has been training an AI himself for the past few months if you haven’t seen his vids of it >
  
  If our real banks (and other institutions, like insurance companies and even the government when you call about renewing your passport) had not outsourced call centers, this scam wouldn't work.  
  Your sensitive information shouldn't be leaving the country anyway. >
  
  If you guys haven't heard, a group of Youtubers have done more to disrupt scam call centers in a year than our government has done in decades. Mark Rober has a great video about it. Also search for "The people's call center" amd get ready for some wholesome internet. >
  
  This would all be solved if they let the Millennials be in charge. We don’t answer the phone for shit. >
  
  we do not. we text. if they called and want something important, leave a fucking message or write an email. >
  
  You guys are still answering the phone?! >
  
  No, but grandma is. >
  
  Yup. I was visiting my nana and she was on the phone with someone. She poked her head out of the back office and was like, "How do I give someone re-mote-access?"
  OHELLNO "Phone. Gimmie." >
  
  The narrative that it's only elderly who get caught in this needs to be shutdown.
  Plenty of people get caught in scams because they think their utilities are getting shut off. 
  Or they think they're getting a remote work job and are instructed to cash a fake check and send money to buy "supplies". 
  More recently people are getting calls from paypal/their bank of choice asking them to setup zelle so they can send a transaction to 'block' a fraud transaction. 
  Some people are just trying to buy a puppy off a Facebook group, and then get lead on saying that a speciality animal courier service is required to ship...and then a special crate is needed...oh and documentation to allow for the transport of a specialty breed.
  Does it all sound crazy ? Sure. But generally these people know enough about you or your account so that it really seems valid. And the victims think "Scammers only target uneducated, elderly people. I know how the Internet works and I'm college educated , so there's no way I'm being duped." And then they ignore the sinking feeling for 3 more $500.00 transfers before admitting that they got scammed. >
  
  American businesses could potentially help by not outsourcing their customer/tech support to India. Some Indian guy asking for you to click a link in an email they sent you is more trustworthy to old people because some Indian dude just helped reboot their WiFi lol >
  
  I set my mom up with a voip phone system and the provider offers a PBX service. I set filters up for all the family to ring directly through and all other calls go to voicemail where I get an email if they leave a message. 
  It solved a lot of problems. >
  
  The accent is a dead giveaway. >
  
  The only scam there is, is that American telecom companies dont stop these fake calls >
  
  An easy solution is to just pickup the phone and press 2 buttons ( Mute + Loudspeaker) and only answer when someone on the other side says "hello" . 99% of the time the scammers will hang up. >
  
  I use to work consumer protection for the Attorney General in my state. Part of my job was taking reports on new scams and helping individuals who had fallen for scams. We had quite a few older adults who would end up losing several thousands of dollars to scam centers over there. I'd hear stories from grandmas who gave up their retirement money because their "grandson" was in jail and needed help. These call centers house some of the most heartless people on the planet. Once the money is sent, it's gone. 
  It never hurts to educate your family members on older scams. We are growing up with the internet and it is easier to spot these types of scams because we know about it. Your grandparents did not have that luxury. Educate, educate, educate. >
  
  And people wonder why I never answer my phone >
  
  A lot of replies here are people saying they wouldn’t get scammed.  Be careful with that belief because it actually makes you a bigger target.  The truth is that anyone can be scammed, it just depends on the specifics and complexity of the scam.  Scams that push your specific buttons or circumvent your specific checks can make you fall for it bigger and harder than anyone. 
  These Indian call center based scams are getting more and more complex. Language skills are impressive and the complexity is rising.  Yes, older and less technical folks fall for the more obvious scams, but don’t let that fool your that you can’t be the victim of a different scam.  
  We should all be advocating to put protections in place for consumers and significant consequences for the scammers. >
  
  The US government isn't doing anything about it. The Indian government is also not doing anything much about it, except for the recent arrests, which I'm sure the perps would just bribe the Indian police and be back to scamming the old and vulnerable American citizens. The main city from where all these scams are done are Kolkata and Delhi. YouTube scam baiters are trying but it's useless without US government support. >
  
  There needs to be an app where you just hit a button then the scammer’s call gets forwarded to another scammer call center. >
  
  I help hard of hearing folk generally over the age of 65 with captioning their phone calls and let me tell you... a good 30% of ALL my calls each day are phone scammers. It's fucking disgusting. >
  
  Indian accent? Hang up >
  
  We should be funding YouTube scambaiter channels and expanding their operations >
  
  we should try to scam them back >
  
  With an incredibly heavy Indian accent you’d be suspicious if their name is John smith. >
  
  Are you trying to suggest that "Chesney from Fort Lauderdale" with the thick Indian accent was lying about my lottery win? Should I not have given him my card details to pay for the "Federal Marshals" to bring my check in person? >
  
  I screw with them whenever I have time.
  $cammer: I am with the Medicare Department, how are you today sir??
  Me: I'll be honest with ya, it's been a rough morning. My ass is a real diarrhea fountain and it burns like I'm shitting napalm. I'm telling ya, my anus is an onion ring at this point.
  $cammer: click
  60% of the time, it works every time. >
  
  Imagine if we were this concerned about wage theft. >
  
  My grandpa is getting scammed right now and we can't do anything. My mom tried to take his card and phone and he flipped the fuck out. He refuses to believe he's getting scammed. He's been like this his whole life. >
  
  Here’s a list of people I don’t mind being murdered:
  1) Pedophiles
  2) Scammers >
  
  This is why I answer each and every single call and try to keep them on as long as possible.
  The one that surprisingly worked the best was when they told me they had my package seized at the boarder. I started yelling at the guy that he had to release the Chinese prostitutes and I had already paid the bribe to get them through customs and there was hell to pay if he thought I was going to pay another bribe.  He was swearing at me by the end of it. >
  
  Rule #1: if someone with an Indian accent calls you, and they tell you their name is Steve or Tom, don't trust them >
  
  Well past time for India to crack down on these scammer scumbags. It gives the country a bad name, they shouldn’t tolerate this crap. >
  
  The local police and the government are complicit. >
  
  I had three calls over three days with these guys as i catfished them in to believing I was an elderly person eager to resolve some back taxes.  It was hilarious for me.  Only logistic takeaway was that they were adamant I pay in Best Buy gift cards. >
  
  I Love messing with these calls. Wasting their time and they get so pissy when they figure out they got tricked. I always ask them how it feels and they cuss at me. It’s like Im on a do not call list now because I haven’t gotten a call from them in long. >
  
  Not just the elderly but children as well. Kids have email, phones, access to the internet. My 11 year old was convinced if I gave her my cashapp that she could double her money by giving this guy money and he would return it plus extra. Keep an eye out and monitor their tech >
  
  While most scams are childishly simple and targeted towards the vulnerable, things like deepfake videos and voice cloning are going to trick a lot of people in future. These losses to fraud will only increase. >
  
  “Hello this is the IRS calling. The Police are on the way to arrest you, please give me your SSN and wire us $10,000 to avoid going to jail” >
  
  No it’s gift cards. The irs demands iTunes gift cards. >
  
  My IRS guy wanted steam gift cards, must be a regional thing >
  
  Really? Well I'm from Utica and I've never heard of the IRS wanting Steamed giftcards. >
  
  Steamed gift cards are more of an Albany currency. >
  
  My brain prompted, "it's a regional dependency." >
  
  The world telephone network is hoplessly outdated. It should not be possible to spoof phone numbers. >
  
  Fixing that would fix so many scam related problems. >
  
  The people being scammed are usually elderly. The phone call could literally be labelled "SCAM", and they would still answer, wondering who it is. >
  
  It is so cruel how they attack the elderly. They called my grandfather saying I was in jail and he needed to bail me out. This man was a genius and self made businessman in his youth but we all lose mental fortitude with age. He was so scared I was in jail and was only stopped when his son came and said I'm fine and to call me. I was in class so I didn't answer for a while so despite my mom's assurances I was fine he wouldn't stop panicking till he heard my voice. They are cruel and attack the emotions of the vulnerable. >
  
  They called my grandma years ago (local scam not in the US) and she was like, what did he do, and they guy said attempted robbery and she was like, 'ok leave him there, he needs to learn a lesson' >
  
  They told my grandma I was arrested with a trunk full of drugs and needed bail that night. I hope that guy gets anal warts. >
  
  The worst part is when you call these assholes out their reaction is just “fuck you, you’re and American you’re rich, you don’t need your money and you deserve it anyways.” >
  
  Ugh, this shit is the worst. I got called by someone claiming to be "from Internal Revenue Service" and was bored so I let the call go to a person. The first thing I say is 'Just to confirm, you are claiming to be a representative of the Internal Revenue Service' and I am just met with a curt "Fuck You" and the call ending. Like it's my fault they are shitty >
  
  I got one who was going to “remove my credit card debt.” I took him for a ride as I went to “search for my wallet” and get it out of my other pair of pants (totally, for real), and revealed that I “only” had $4,000 in credit card debt (not sure what number is normal to these folks), and he eventually figured out that I was yanking his chain. Dude kept going “fuck you, sir! Fuck you, sir! Hang up, sir! Fuck you, sir!” As I laughed hysterically going, “awwww, does baby hate it when he gets cawwed on his widdle scams? Is baby sad he couldn’t steal my cweddit cawd? Poor baby, oooo!”
  My other favorite is to just say “your parents lie about you when friends ask how you’re doing. That’s how disgusted they are with you.” Buddy of mine is Hindi and has assured me that that cuts pretty deep in Indian culture. >
  
  I had one threaten to rape me at my home address. I pretended to be a homosexual who would be thrilled by such an encounter. Not that there's anything wrong with being a homosexual. >
  
  Unfortunately it also happens at businesses.
  I work for a state college IT and we did a fake scam phishing email to the whole college, after everyone completed mandatory training on phishing. We do this every year. The email we send out is as obviously scammy as possible, including spelling errors and not being related to anything about the college itself.
  We still had over 100 faculty/staff members open the email, follow the fake scam link, and put in their credit card information on the page that popped up.
  It's a big problem and an even bigger liability. Wish we could just outright fire everyone who fell for that scam, because those folks are those who follow links that get their entire computer randomware'd. We have a room in the college with all the hard drives we have had to pull because they were locked down with ransomware. >
  
  100 COLLEGE faculty and staff fell for it!? Damn >
  
  Yea that isn't good sign for our education system that professors and the like are that gullible >
  
  From my experience they think they are so much more brilliant than everyone else that it’s inconceivable they could get scammed. >
  
  I don’t understand how anyone thinks an email asking for them to go type credit card information in somewhere is legit. Would you give that to someone who knocked on the door or stopped you on the sidewalk because they say they are the government or some shit? No. Then why are you doing it for an email?
  It's inconceivable. Especially the farther along in time we get and how people in their 40s and 50s now have been using computers their entire lives. This isn't like 2002 where most people over like age 40 had extremely poor tech literacy because they didn't use it growing up. 
  Then again I'm always blown away that someone in their 30s or 40s now doesn't know how to copy and paste text. It's like not knowing how to use a telephone in 1980. >
  
  It’s amazing. The ex girlfriend of my friend bill who had recently passed away sent $10k in gift cards to India. She was like 65 and of sound mind. She told me about it a few days later. I was like, Kate you know that I work in fraud and AML! Why didn’t you call me! >
  
  When I get a call where they start off immediately (with a thick Indian accent) how much tax liability is dangerous and failure to reply is punishable by law, then ask me to confirm my name... Just say "well, you called me, therefore you know my name and liability, please tell me who I am?" and they just hang up. So rude, was in the mood to have fun. >
  
  If you’re hungry for more there’s a couple YT channels dedicated purely to trolling these clowns and wasting hours of their time so that they can’t steal from actual people. One even hacked into their security cams and coordinated with the Indian police to arrest the whole call center. >
  
  Jim Browning
  Trilogy Media
  Kitboga
  Scammer Payback >
  
  Scammer Payback gets downright mean sometimes...it's great, and entirely deserved. >
  
  Agreed. Considering that a group of scammers took my grandpa's entire life savings (not an insignificant amount of money) under the guise of him winning a 5 million PCH sweepstakes, and being a large contributor to his passing, I want nothing but cruelty for these scammers. >
  
  I keep getting Indian IRS calls lol. “This is John smith from the IRS” the names are always hilarious stereotypes. >
  
  not as egregious as that, but i recently got one from "the office of visa and mastercard" - who knew they have one office for the two monster credit card companies!  i told the scammer that and he proceeded to curse me out. >
  
  You'd think he'd be grateful for the info smh. >
  
  I, for one, would like to normalize not telling scammers about the obvious mistakes they are making. >
  
  It's not really a mistake. Most people who are sharp enough to realise that those two wouldn't share an office wouldn't fall for the scam anyways. Name dropping both companies prevents people from retorting that they don't have that type of card, which is a much bigger concern among people gullible enough to fall for it. Mass-scale scams often do things like that to sacrifice believability for efficiency. >
  
  We all might wonder how anyone can be gullible enough to fall for these. But seniors with cognitive decline are easy targets. >
  
  Very much so.  My mom's phone would get these all the time before we got spam filtering enabled.  Even now sometimes one gets through.
  If I end up talking to them, I ask them how they sleep at night doing what they're doing?  How would they feel if it was their parent being scammed?  And so forth.  That at least makes me feel better when they hang up on me even if it doesn't do much else. >
  
  If you wanna feel even better, look up Kitboga on YouTube. He spends hours, sometimes days, wasting scammers time using fake bank accounts and voice acting. It's a hell of a watch >
  
  There are a few others out there that play the scammer’s games to raise hell on them. Scammer payback is actually hacking the scammer’s computers and deleting all of their computer data while also coping it to give to the authorities and try and contact the victims to save them before they send off money. >
  
  I’ve been bingeing Scammer Payback for a few days. I think he’s not actually hacking anything, he’s just using a feature or AnyDesk or TeamViewer or whatever remote desktop software they use to gain access to the scammer’s computer and delete their files. He put out a video where he deleted 300,000 files from a scammer’s computer. That could’ve been tens of thousands of people saved.
  Edit: In another video he says "Since a lot of scammers watch this channel, we're not going to show you exactly how we gain access to their systems." So we don't know how they gain access to their systems exactly. >
  
  How does he get remote access to the scammers computer? Wouldn't the scammer have to allow that on his end? >
  
  That exactly what happens. He will get the connection request from the scammer on his virtual machine, then he sends a connection request of his own to the scammer's computer from either another VM or his main computer, while saying something like "it's asking for confirmation". The idea is that the scammer doesn't read his pop-up top closely and just assumes it's the confirmation request.
  If the scammer denies the request, he says something like "it says confirmation request cancelled", and tries again. If the scammer accepts the connection request, he quickly accepts the request on his VM. What you end up with is his computer remotely connected to the scammer's computer which is remotely connected to his VM. From there he can start downloading, deleting, and uploading files to the scammer's computer. >
  
  Last week I got a call from one, and I took him for a ride for a half hour before asking him if he was familiar with the word pierogi and he instantly told me to fuck my father and hung up.
  If you’re unfamiliar, Scammer Payback on YouTube is a riot and a half. >
  
  Pierogi are delicious. He’s missing out. >
  
  They do this stuff openly. They are located in proper offices and pay off the police.
  We really need to change things to make these scams very, very hard to do. >
  
  I try to keep these guys on the phone as long as I can and when they realize what I’m doing they get so ridiculously vulgar. “Where’s your husband, is he ready to fuck your mouth? Can we both fuck you?!” followed by hysterical laughter — recent fav of mine. >
  
  I usually get them to small talk about sports and since it's India it inevitably leads to cricket. Then I tell them the Pakistani cricket team is way better than the Indian one.
  They usually lose their shit at that. >
  
  That is freaking genius, might have to borrow it! >
  
  But... we have Kitboga >
  
  Just wait a moment >
  
  Ma'am. WHY YOU REDEEM? >
  
  You DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT. M... ma'am listen to me. LISTEN TO ME.
  HELLO
  hElLo
  HELlo HELLOOOO
  DO NOT PRESSS THAT BUTTON
  aAAAAhhH... benchot. >
  
  that 'benchot" always get me, reeks sheer frustration and defeat! >
  
  Same thing happening in Australia guys, sickening to scam the elderly, rotten fucks. >
  
  Yeah but rookie number compared to the pokies scamming pensioners out of every last cent >
  
  
  "it may not be a national security concern yet, but the reputation (of a country) is involved, and we don’t want India to suffer on that count,” Daud told the publication.
  
  I don't know but seems like people on internet already make that kind of stereotype, hopefully they still manage to catch those criminals. >
  
  Most regions in India where it is popular (Kolkata) are corrupt and the police take bribes to look the other way. It will never stop unless the US takes action. Currently, education and spreading information is the only solution. >
  
  Which isn’t a solution because Indian scammers target the elderly. >
  
  They got pretty good before I moved. I mean, until I heard them speak. Come on now you aren't "Mike". But the number would be from somewhere important so I'd answer. Dudes got lazy after a while and started spoofing my own number and that's just insulting. I definitely didn't call myself.. or did I? Guess I should answer >
  
  Vsauce music starts playing >
  
  I always wondered why the IRS only hired Indian accented collection agents!  I keep telling them I only deal in gold and they need to show up on my doorstep to collect! >
  
  Time to call Mark Rober again.
  Help us u/_scienceftw_ you're our only hope. >
  
  Mark should do something on it as he gets a lot of attention.  There are numerous people on YouTube that expose this stuff and get people arrested, but it’s like a hydra and keeps spawning.  Educating people on these types of scams is the best way to stop it. >
  
  He did. About a year ago. Teamed up with some of the other YouTubers who do this all the time and I think got a few centers shut down, but they probably just re opened elsewhere. >
  
  Yeah Jim Browning was getting fed up with the police not doing anything and started telling the scammers parents what they were doing. >
  
  Probably more effective! >
  
  It's absolutely time to end the ability to spoof phone numbers. >
  
  The newest phishing scam I keep seeing is that a “legit” company (DoorDash, Pinterest, another large American corporation) has emailed me out of the blue with a job offer for an upper management position! And all I have to do is click on the link to apply! 
  Not gonna lie, I almost fell for that one.
  Almost. >
  
  Let's put the blame where it is really due: on our telecomm companies. They allow these scam calls to pass through their networks unimpeded even though they have the ability to stop it. FTC should start fining them for ever scam and robo call, then you'd see this shit disappear overnight. >
  
  The companies themselves are burning money trying to solve this problem
  It's just too fucking easy to spoof a phone number and VOIP tech is used too regularly in all types of businesses for them to start banning calls from it >
  
  Get the Indian government to crack down on these scammers and reimburse the victims. >
  
  Can't explain that to seniors with dementia. Indian government is corrupt so put enough pressure on that they have no choice. >
  
  Not only that, but I think they answer out of loneliness and for a bit of excitement.
  My dad has some cognitive decline, but he's not diagnosed with dementia. I think he picks up because he just wants something to do (also, before anyone calls me a bad daughter because my senior dad is lonely, I do everything I can to get him to participate more in life. I even moved him in with me but ended up in a mental health crisis because I'm not equipped to handle it. Now he lives in a senior apartment with activities and groups and still won't do anything but watch trash tv and drink beer. Trust me, it breaks my heart to think my dad is just sitting around, doing nothing and waiting to die). 
  Anyways, he tells me that someone claiming to be from Social Security called but that he figured out it was a scam, so he got into an argument with them, or someone called from Medicare, but he figured out it was a scam, so he....etc.
  I keep telling him that the more he picks up, the more they're going to call and that if it's important, they'll leave a message. He continues to pick up, and I continue to hope that he stays the course of not giving out personal info. Now if I could only get him to stop blowing his savings on Instacart and stupid mobile game transactions... >
  
  Just for the record, no one with elderly parents or really any experience with the elderly would blame you for any decision you've made. It's extremely difficult. Just based on everything you've said here, it sounds like you are extremely involved with him in doing the best you possibly can. >
  
  Google's Pixel phones feature call screening. It's single handley one of the best features in any smartphone. If the individual calling can't say who they are. I have no reason to talk to them. >
  
  Honestly it's great, I just smack that screen button anytime I don't know who's calling >
  
  This stuff is just going to get worse. The way deepfakes and voice mimicking software is advancing it is just a matter of time before Grandma is receiving actually video chat calls by someone who looks AND sounds like their grandkid in real time. Anyone who has much of a social media presence will be able to be impersonated with scary accuracy. >
  
  One of the big problems is that the scammers pay off the local police to turn a blind eye. So to fix the problem of scam call centres you have to address the problem of institutionalized corruption in the Indian police. >
  
  I started answering scam calls. When I get a live person I just keep repeating “are you circumcised?” to men and women. Most just hang right up. Some get angry and try to yell at me. It’s fucking hilarious. One person even tried to tell me that I had called her and that she was going to report me for harassment. Such morons. Indian men really don’t like to be asked about their junk. They especially don’t like it if you start asking if other men in their families are circumcised. “How about your dad and nephews? They circumcised too?” In the rare instance you get someone who thinks they’re gonna play along just ask them to send you a picture of their circumcision, “you have my number, send me a pic right now”. Click.
  Any way, after I started doing this I noticed the amount of scam calls I get started to decrease. >
  
  Highly recommend you learn basic Hindi. I have been answering every spam call. And once I start speaking Hindi slurs the second I get a real operator, they get so pissy. 
  I'm the scam caller vigilante and also call them using /r/scamnumbers.
  Fuckers are ruining the reputations of India >
  
  “What was I thinking? You can’t be circumcised if you’re a Napoonsak.”
  Excellent! >
  
  Can someone please train an Kitboga AI and unleash it on these scammers. I would pay good money for that. >
  
  Kitboga has been training an AI himself for the past few months if you haven’t seen his vids of it >
  
  If our real banks (and other institutions, like insurance companies and even the government when you call about renewing your passport) had not outsourced call centers, this scam wouldn't work.  
  Your sensitive information shouldn't be leaving the country anyway. >
  
  If you guys haven't heard, a group of Youtubers have done more to disrupt scam call centers in a year than our government has done in decades. Mark Rober has a great video about it. Also search for "The people's call center" amd get ready for some wholesome internet. >
  
  This would all be solved if they let the Millennials be in charge. We don’t answer the phone for shit. >
  
  we do not. we text. if they called and want something important, leave a fucking message or write an email. >
  
  You guys are still answering the phone?! >
  
  No, but grandma is. >
  
  Yup. I was visiting my nana and she was on the phone with someone. She poked her head out of the back office and was like, "How do I give someone re-mote-access?"
  OHELLNO "Phone. Gimmie." >
  
  The narrative that it's only elderly who get caught in this needs to be shutdown.
  Plenty of people get caught in scams because they think their utilities are getting shut off. 
  Or they think they're getting a remote work job and are instructed to cash a fake check and send money to buy "supplies". 
  More recently people are getting calls from paypal/their bank of choice asking them to setup zelle so they can send a transaction to 'block' a fraud transaction. 
  Some people are just trying to buy a puppy off a Facebook group, and then get lead on saying that a speciality animal courier service is required to ship...and then a special crate is needed...oh and documentation to allow for the transport of a specialty breed.
  Does it all sound crazy ? Sure. But generally these people know enough about you or your account so that it really seems valid. And the victims think "Scammers only target uneducated, elderly people. I know how the Internet works and I'm college educated , so there's no way I'm being duped." And then they ignore the sinking feeling for 3 more $500.00 transfers before admitting that they got scammed. >
  
  American businesses could potentially help by not outsourcing their customer/tech support to India. Some Indian guy asking for you to click a link in an email they sent you is more trustworthy to old people because some Indian dude just helped reboot their WiFi lol >
  
  I set my mom up with a voip phone system and the provider offers a PBX service. I set filters up for all the family to ring directly through and all other calls go to voicemail where I get an email if they leave a message. 
  It solved a lot of problems. >
  
  The accent is a dead giveaway. >
  
  The only scam there is, is that American telecom companies dont stop these fake calls >
  
  An easy solution is to just pickup the phone and press 2 buttons ( Mute + Loudspeaker) and only answer when someone on the other side says "hello" . 99% of the time the scammers will hang up. >
  
  I use to work consumer protection for the Attorney General in my state. Part of my job was taking reports on new scams and helping individuals who had fallen for scams. We had quite a few older adults who would end up losing several thousands of dollars to scam centers over there. I'd hear stories from grandmas who gave up their retirement money because their "grandson" was in jail and needed help. These call centers house some of the most heartless people on the planet. Once the money is sent, it's gone. 
  It never hurts to educate your family members on older scams. We are growing up with the internet and it is easier to spot these types of scams because we know about it. Your grandparents did not have that luxury. Educate, educate, educate. >
  
  And people wonder why I never answer my phone >
  
  A lot of replies here are people saying they wouldn’t get scammed.  Be careful with that belief because it actually makes you a bigger target.  The truth is that anyone can be scammed, it just depends on the specifics and complexity of the scam.  Scams that push your specific buttons or circumvent your specific checks can make you fall for it bigger and harder than anyone. 
  These Indian call center based scams are getting more and more complex. Language skills are impressive and the complexity is rising.  Yes, older and less technical folks fall for the more obvious scams, but don’t let that fool your that you can’t be the victim of a different scam.  
  We should all be advocating to put protections in place for consumers and significant consequences for the scammers. >
  
  The US government isn't doing anything about it. The Indian government is also not doing anything much about it, except for the recent arrests, which I'm sure the perps would just bribe the Indian police and be back to scamming the old and vulnerable American citizens. The main city from where all these scams are done are Kolkata and Delhi. YouTube scam baiters are trying but it's useless without US government support.