Inside a Scam Call Center (Video)

While you read these lines, someone has clicked on the wrong pop-up, and within minutes a scammer will pose as a Microsoft technician or another company to steal your money. The activity in those “fraud centers” is much more complex and intense than we imagine, and their level of organization is remarkable. The YouTuber Jim Browning, known for his ability to detect and track online scammers, has published a video with privileged access to one of the many malicious call centers operating in Calcutta.

The concept of telephone fraud emerged with the explosion of this technology in the late 1950s. However, today the traditional telephone line is almost a museum piece in many countries, and the entire core of activity goes through mobile devices and VoIP. Some campaigns are massive, to the point that nor could cinema ignore them, and several YouTube channels are dedicated specifically to identifying and tracking these scammers.

One of the latest cases takes us to India, the world capital of fake call centers. The YouTuber Jim Browning managed to hack the laptop in one of the most relevant fraudulent centers in Calcutta, and this is what he saw:

Computer Fraud in Calcutta

Browning has a special interest in the group because their actions go beyond the typical “your PC has a virus, give me money”. A woman named Christy was a victim of these miserable people, who turned on the webcam of her system, took photos of her children, threatened her, and deleted personal files.

The campaign is based on a false refund. The scammer convinces the victim to enter their bank account, and promises a refund for a service that supposedly will stop working, but by editing the HTML of the page, the scammer forges a transaction larger than indicated in the previous step, and “requests” the victim to return the difference without giving too many details to the bank about the operation, or alternatively will recommend a gift card or another limited-tracking method.

Browning also explains some of the technical resources used by the scammers. Victim lists are shared via WhatsApp or email. Vox Account is the (legal and premium) platform they use to make multiple calls. Their go-to VoIP software is X-Lite (incoming calls) and 3CX (outgoing calls). And the central piece of the whole campaign, which is the distribution of the fake message about the refund received by each victim the first time, is handled by a company called Dialer360.

What did Browning do? He replaced that fake message with his own audio, warning people that the call came from a call center full of scammers in Calcutta, and increased the frequency of calls to exhaust their credit on Dialer360 faster. The last two minutes are pure gold, and Browning didn't have too many problems identifying the scammers, because one of them posted his wedding photos online. Browning's last step was to share the material with the computer police in Calcutta, but most likely they will do nothing. In fact, I would even dare to think they are part of the campaign...