The Ugly Truth of Scam Call Centres in Asia
With companies naturally eager to earn more profits, they find ways to reduce costs. As such, one way to reduce costs would be to outsource. Many companies such as Trainline, a company based in the UK and Singtel, a telephone company based in Singapore, utilise foreign-based companies to handle their customer service needs. While this may help them to reduce costs effectively, it is nonetheless a double-edged sword. Coupled with the economic downturn and high unemployment rates driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a rise in the number of scam call centres and a rise in kidnapping foreigners to force them to make scam calls in these centres, as seen in a 118 percent increase in the number of phone scams from 2021 to 2022.
The rise of scam call centres in Asia
Technology aided scams are an international issue, but India has emerged as the leader in this industry . Youtuber Jim Browning, part of a trio of scam baiters, exposed the alleged individuals behind the call centres and went on to explain that over 95 percent of global scam calls originated from India. A Common modus of operation as to how these scam call centres functioned was to steal genuine customer databases from the tech companies that they work for.. Some centres even employ ‘Culture Trainers’ who teach workers how to sound British by teaching them conversational skills, popular culture, British colloquialisms and how to neutralise their accents.
The type of scams that surface varies from time to time. It could be an advertisement targeted scam, a texting scam or even impersonating scams, which is one of the most common scams in the UK. Between April 2018 and April 2019, 23,500 complaints of this type of fraud were made to the City of London Police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. On the other side of the continent, impersonating phone scams are also common in countries such as Singapore, where out of the 23,391 scam cases reported in 2021, there was an increase in 70 percent of chinese-speaking scammers that trick victims into transferring them money by posing as police officers or even COVID-19 health officials.
The rise of forced kidnapping to train victims to be scam callers
While it is true that most of the global scam calls originate from India, it is worth mentioning that there are scam call centres in countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, where these centres are usually run by crime syndicates or gangs. The death of a 23 year old Malaysian shed some light on the way these centres find people to force them to work for them. Goi Zhen Feng, a Malaysian man went to Bangkok to find a girl he met online, only to realise that he had fallen victim to a love scam. He was believed to have been trafficked into Myawaddy in southeastern Myanmar and forced to work for the syndicate. Goi’s experience was echoed by a 29-year-old single mother who was desperate after losing her job due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She said a Malaysian agent took her to Thailand, then to Mae Sot and KK Garden. She escaped more than three months later after pleading for her life and paying a ransom. These examples falls under the threshold of ‘modern slavery’, which is defined as the illegal exploitation of people for personal or commercial gain by Anti-Slavery International. Victims from Africa and other Asian nations were also lured by the promise of a high-paying job. However, upon arrival, their travel documents were seized, and immediately given new names. Generally they were made to work long hours in a confined area scamming others, with some beaten up if they failed to show results. As mentioned by Thailand’s assistant national police commissioner Surachate Hakparn, those who refuse to participate in such operations “get assaulted, some get whipped, others get electrocuted … some get beaten up and others get locked in dark rooms and are not given food.”
The law at hand
Though there are laws in place to protect people’s data such as the Data Protection Act of 2018, not much can be done with regards to prosecuting and punishing foreign-based scam centres. The main reason is that it does not fall under domestic jurisdiction. Furthermore, in countries such as India where the legal system is weak, it would be difficult for the national police to trace these centres. In countries such as Thailand, transnational cooperation is required to rescue the victims from captivity and bureaucratic red tape prevents enforcement officers to carry out efficient investigations, as evident in the fact that there are many others who are still trapped and forced to work for these crime syndicates.
Conclusion:
Scam calls are not nation specific, it can affect anyone worldwide. With such severe ramifications on the social and economic aspects of society, domestic governments are increasingly looking to find solutions for citizens falling prey to scams. In the UK, Action Fraud is an online portal to report scams. Similarly in Singapore, telecommunication services are trying ways to differentiate spoofed numbers, allowing users to spot scam calls even before they answer the phone. Nonetheless these measures would only work to a certain extent. People who are less tech savvy are still prone to falling for such scams or fraud due to them having lesser knowledge of the issue at hand. Moreover, with such negative byproducts associated with outsourcing customer service relations, should domestic governments do more to address the issue of scam calls or should international organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) handle such issues?
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https://www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2021/45-million-people-targeted-by-scams
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/phone-spam-statistics/
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/scam-call-overseas-plus-65-businesses-imda-2663341
https://apnews.com/article/health-covid-myanmar-malaysia-thailand-7b4ce998d2925e4b782dcb8b3f10bea1
https://thediplomat.com/2022/04/police-rescue-66-thai-nationals-from-scam-call-centers-in-cambodia/
