Inside the Mind of a “Professional Scam Caller”

For many of us it is hard to understand how phone scammers could possibly justify their actions. Spending their days creating new ways to shamelessly steal from innocent people and congratulating themselves for every person they manage to deceive.

BBC recently published an interview with a former “professional scam caller” from an Indian scam call-centre. They also published a video showing these employees laughing at their victims and generally having little regard for the people they were conning.

Let’s take a look at the most staggering information the BBC article reveals

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They see tricking people as an “art”

How do these scam callers get money out of trusting people?

They send a pop-up screen onto the victim’s computer saying they have a “pornographic virus” on their computer. The scammer add a phone number for the targets to call.

After receiving the phone call from the panicking people, the scammers offer to solve their non-existing problem for a hefty sum of money.

Another way they like to scam people is to pretend they call from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) telling people they’d get a tax refund if they first paid a comparatively “small” sum.

Scammers are constantly coming with new ideas to rip-off people of their money calling it an “art”.

They don’t mind stealing from “rich people”

It is hard to imagine that even this type of people have some conscience. But some of thesem do think they are only stealing from rich people. As they get access to one’s computer they can check what kind of information is there and determine if that person has enough money to be worth the con.

They say if a person can afford it it is okay to steal from them. These scam callers see themselves as doing nothing bad as they are just trying to earn money in their economy as India has very high unemployment rates. They don’t mind becoming a thief to get the money they long for.

They make more money than an MBA graduate

How much money they make from these scams, you might ask. Enough to buy fancy cars, designer clothes, sunglasses, watches, and rent apartments in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Delhi.

They don’t even need a degree to start working in this dark industry and make more money than an MBA graduate.

The company pays their employees based on how much money they manage to steal from their targets. As an example, for every 100$ they take from a victim they get a bit over 1 $.

This is the employees, the owner of the scam call-center can “earn” as much as 50,000$ a month.

They often lie to their families about their job

Are they ashamed of what they do for a living, you might be wondering? Well, some of them are. They might lie to their families about what kind of job they are doing. But others say their loved ones are proud of how much money they bring home regardless of they had to do to get them

However, they all have one thing in common - they live in constant fear of the police finding and arresting them. Many of these scammers eventually change their field of business as the scam calling business is not a long term solution.