Indian Call Center Data For Sale?

Guess this is a good enough case against off shore tech support.

Wonder what would happen to a US company that had this kind of security breach.

Remember how companies said it would save money? I guess it was to save the cash for when lawsuits will start coming.

Absolutely nothing. Granted in this situation, Indians engaging in illegal activity were prosecuted, but Citibank wasn't held accountable for the problems it caused its customers in the USA. These sorts of crimes cost banks nothing because they are able to force the merchants involved to eat the bogus charges.

Of course, innocent victims of such fraud could face serious problems, even after the bank has resolved the problem for itself. Until laws are passed which ban banks from moving customer data outside of this country, this sort of problem will just get worse.

This has happened a number of times. Convergys, who does the State of Florida's payroll, was having much of it's work done in India which is was not suppose to be doing because of these exact concerns. I remember about 2 years ago a banks had this happen to them in an Indian call center.
My opinion, personal information entrusted to a company should not leave that company via an outsourced group.

Exactly! You get what you pay for.

Only way to force them NOT to do it..

I used to have an AMEX card. First time I had to call customer service and got India, I cancelled it.

Just like Dell, AMEX talks bout their customer service, and then gives me someone who can barely speak english when I need help (and yeah, I know they teach English in the schools in India, so this person must have been a drop out, since they couldn't be understood by anyone who didn't speak her native tongue).

Cancelled my AMEX. For the most part, I just pay cash as I go now. I have an ATM card, but no debit card connected to my checking account.

I do have a MasterCard I keep for emergency's (Like the root canal I needed 2 weeks ago) and large purchases to get the double warranty they offer.

Wonder if I get a double warranty on the root canal

Well, at least they can read numbers.

Being Indian doesn't make you mentally retarded. Our number system is pretty well recognised around the world.

If you were to travel outside the 50 states, the rest of the English speaking world wouldn't understand you either.

If they know, which now they do, yes, a person defrauded could hold them liable.

...this could, and does, happen anywhere in the world.

Sadly, the lowest common denominator is money...everyone and everything has a price....the color of skin matters very little.

Do I really need to dig up the countless breaches of privacy that have happened to and by US firms in the US?

Data security is a global problem...that's why us IT security people make the big bucks

I absolutely can't stand the stereotypes flying about...this didn't happen because the people involved were Indian...it was because the people involved were making money!!!

Blaming this on a race is no better than offering fried chicken and watermelon to your black boss when you have him over for dinner!

Before this happened.
I remember when this off-shore thing first started, one of the reasons was security. They said 'your information will never be sold to anyone'. And besides, I don't believe there are any laws in India preventing this. Sure, there are international contracts, ethics, but when you come down to it, per that country's laws, this is not an illegal act.

What did people think was going to happen when companies from the civilized world starting giving all of our private data to indian companies?
The only good thing about this, is the lawsuit potential. If our data is sent to india, it will be stolen.(This is only a matter of time) So companies will have to weigh potential lawsuits and saving a few dollars an hour on employees vs hiring people from the countries they are in and not having all the security issues.

Meanwhile, the person defrauded might be out of a house, job or have no assets with which to pursue such a claim because the fraud robbed them of the ability to acquire such things. Said person might not even be able to drive to the courthouse because they could not afford higher car insurance premiums which poor credit scorers must pay.

I've always believe that banks are far more powerful than the US Government when it comes to restrictions on citizens. At least if the government screws up you have some recourse and a presumption of innocence. When a bank screws up, you not only have to prove the bank screwed up, but while you are trying to prove it, you might be subject to many problems due to a fraudulently bad credit rating.

The current legal system offers banks no incentive to correct these problems. Until such fraud actually hits banks' bottom line, there will be no fix.

Don't know about you but this security specialist doesn't make close to enough money , for the crap I have to both do and take when some idiot user downloads a trojan and unleashes a plethora of security violations on a global network.

"Our number system"?

-tom

Pnh102, I agree with you my friend.

In addition to banking institutes, this law should apply to ANY American company or corporations outsourcing detailed records to call centers or other 3rd party sources whether overseas or here at home.

In the Citibank example cited. They should be criminally and financially accountable, not only for their own (in)actions yet also criminally and financially for the outsourced companies, for each and every security breach. Apply this equally to all businesses engaging in such outsourcing activity.

We use software/hardware firewalls, to safeguard this info. Yet, in order to conduct business, the cited example are "allowed" to shut our firewalls off.? That's not right.

And not to mention at least 5,000 years old. India has a been using numbers for thousands of years because historically nothing important happened without consulting an astrologer first. The high priced astrologers in past centuries had observational instruments who's precision was not surpassed until the recently. Does it sound like I admire the India, damn straight!

I look families in Southern India who have been temple functionaries for a thousand years or more. India has Hindu temples which where built at the same time as the Egyptian pyramids. The difference is, while the Egyptian Pyramids are in ruin these Hindu Temples have been in continuous use for all of those millennia.

A short stint (say 30+ years) in a Super Max correctional facility might do the trick!!!

And I wasn't outside the United States, I was in Delaware.

If I travel outside the US, I make a point of learning the local language as much as I can. I am a visitor in another person's country, and it's the polite thing to do.

I do business with a US based Fortune 500, and pay $75 a year for the privilege, I expect the CSR to be intelligible when I call.

It's not too much to ask, and since AMEX thought it was, I voted with my dollar, and took it elsewhere..

Ok, ok. My number system. I refuse to take responsibility for anything that's ever happened, ever, except the numbering system.

»www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/a ··· 2&sc=944

Lubna Baloch sat in her office in the sprawling Pakistani commercial center of Karachi and gazed at the e-mail she'd composed.

"Your patient records are out in the open to be exposed," Baloch wrote in her e-mail, "so you better track that person and make him pay my dues or otherwise I will expose all the voice files and patient records of UCSF Parnassus and Mt. Zion campuses on the Internet."

Gee, isn't that comment a racial stereotype? What if he likes fried chicken and watermelon? I do, especially for a summer cookout.

Don't think anyone is saying Indians are the reason, but what they are saying is that keeping it in the US might make it easier to at least get those who are stealing the numbers. Kinda hard to impossible to do anything when the crime is done overseas. We can't prosecute anyone over there, and US companies just point their finger at the outsourced help.

I agree, what is wrong with fried chicken and watermelon sounds like good eats to me.

GENUINE SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN

3 1/2 pounds chicken, cut up
3 teaspoons salt, divided
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
vegetable oil

Sprinkle chicken with 2 teaspoons salt. Place on platter, cover with wax paper and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Pour 1 inch oil into large, deep, heavy skillet. Add butter and heat over medium-high heat to 375 F.
Meanwhile, rinse chicken under cold water. Place flour, remaining 1 teaspoon salt and the pepper in paper bag; shake well. Add half the chicken; shake to coat well. Shake off excess flour. Repeat with remaining chicken. Add chicken to skillet in single layer so pieces do not touch. (If necessary, cook in batches. Keep cooked pieces warm in 200 F. oven.) Cook until evenly golden brown on both sides, turning once, about 15 minutes. Drain well on paper towels. Serve hot.

I soak the chicken in butter milk for an hour or so and then do the flour thing, Do it in three steps. from the butter milk to the seasoned flour, back for another run through the buttermilk and back into the seasoned flour and then into the oil. Smack-yo-lips-momma!

Serving Size: 6

At least he is not using his English to act like a snob.

Concerning the countless IT security breaches occurring frequently and with alarming regularity.

Tell me WHY you make those big bucks again, for what appears to be non existant security measures. Because I was busy adding additional security layers

IMO, it looks as if these " big buck IT security" personnel are either highly over payed for performing dereliction of duties

OR

Highly over payed, under educated collage grads. who do not have the slightest clue understanding or using the knowledge behind the diploma, mommy and daddy bought for them.

I'm not saying you personally, unless of course, you happen to work where one of those recent IT security breaches occurred.

More often then not, travelling inside the 50 states, the English speaking is getting harder to understand as well.

If working 60 hours a week at 2 different jobs, and expecting good service when I spend my hard earned money makes me a snob, so be it.

I have NOTHING against any people of any decent or nationality. This has nothing to do with the location of the call center or the people staffing it.

It has to do with the death of customer service. Corporate America, has a whole, has abandoned customer service in pursuit of the all-mighty dollar.

If I called AMEX customer service, and the person was polite and intelligible, I wouldn't care that the call center was outside the US.

Conversely, if the call center was placed in the middle of New England, and I couldn't understand the person on the other end due to an overly thick accent, I would be just as miffed.

Especially with something like an AMEX card. You pay them for a service, nothing more. You get nothing physically for your money. Shit, even the damn card remains their property. If the service is bad, why keep it?

Resort to all the name calling you want. I work hard for a living, and if a company wants to earn my money, they'll have to work for it. If they do a poor job, I do the equivalent of firing them, and take my money elsewhere. If they do a good job, they get a loyal customer.

I thought that was how the free market was supposed to work....

You jerk, you're making me hungry