Indian scam call centres looted over $10 billion in 11 months from US senior citizens this year

Data from the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI showed that US citizens have lost more than $10 billion to call centres running scams. These call centres operate as startups or fake customer service call centres and offer tech help to unsuspecting victims, who get scammed into sharing their personal details or worse, access to credit card or bank accounts.

Some of these scammers have even tried to get their hands dirty with romance-related phishing scams.

The data that the FBI released showed that of the $10.2 billion that was looted from American citizens, about $3 billion was done through call centres offering tech help over a VoIP call, and the rest through various other means. All this data was collected over the first 11 months of the year, and the FBI estimates that by the end of the calendar, year, the figure maybe as high as $12 billion. In just these 11 months, the figure saw an increase of 47 per cent, over last year’s $6.9 billion.

Reports state that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has appointed a permanent representative at the US embassy in New Delhi to collaborate closely with the CBI, Interpol, and Delhi Police to break up these phishing gangs and recover money sent via wire and digital currencies to scamming organisations based in India. The FBI is worried that Indian-based phishing gangs are scamming elderly Americans of their life savings.

According to the legal attache to the US embassy in India, Suhel Daud, most of these scam victims are senior citizens over the age of 60. Daud claims that although it is not now a national security threat for either India or the US, it nonetheless contributes significantly to harming our nation’s image. He said that the FBI is ready to close any gaps in the investigation by providing evidence to the local law enforcement agencies so they may bring charges against the implicated parties.