£4,000 loss in a call centre scam

When Doug Varey clicked on a pop-up ad offering computer security protection for 12 years for £556, he signed up.

"I had no reason to suspect it wasn't genuine," he says.

That was a mistake. Mr Varey was a victim of a common online scam known as computer software service fraud, which ended up costing him some £4,000.

Indian police have now shut two call centres and arrested seven people suspected of involvement in the scam, which has seen victims lose thousands.

The arrests follow an international operation involving British and Indian Police and the tech giant Microsoft.

The BBC has had exclusive access to the operation.

The investigation, which has taken four years, focused on what is known as computer software service fraud.

The City of London Police say it is one of the most common online scams, with over 2,000 cases reported to Action Fraud every month.

Doug Varey paid £4,000 to a company in Kolkata in India

The raids by the cyber division of Kolkata Police targeted two call centres in the Indian city thought to have been used to target thousands of victims in the UK and the United States.

Retired businessman Mr Varey says the price of the computer security protection first attracted him.

" I thought per year, that's quite cheap. And I agreed to sign up for it."

A few months later the phone rang one evening in his Devon home. It was the security firm telling him he had a serious problem and needed to go and look at his computer.

There he was shown what he was told was a Russian man who had taken over his computer. "I looked at this screen where there's a picture of a thick-set man in his 50s, I guess, on a computer doing things.

"And this chap said 'Oh my God, oh my God, this is worse than I thought.' And he was increasing my level of anxiety to the point where I was panicking."

He was then shown the man buying guns, ammunition and hand grenades. The adviser on the phone said there was one thing he could do to make the problem go away - pay for an advanced level of security at a "special offer" price of £4,000.

"Now at that time, it wouldn't matter what he said," he explains. "I wanted to finish with the problem."

Important evidence

While he thought he had been speaking to someone based in New York, the money was paid to a company called Vision Call Services, with an address in Kolkata in India.

It was only some weeks later that Mr Varey realised that he had been a victim of computer software service fraud.

He was recently contacted by a Microsoft executive seconded to the investigation which has seen the City of London Police working with several Indian police forces. Microsoft got involved in funding the inquiry because the scam callers often claim to be working for the company.

The documents supplied by Mr Varey were important evidence as the operation to raid call-centres in Kolkata was planned.

How to avoid being scammed

The City of London Police said anyone who thought they had been targeted by a computer software service scam should contact Action Fraud.

The police offered these tips to avoid being scammed:

Always check out callers, especially cold callers who claim to be Microsoft, your telephony provider or internet service provider.
Legitimate organisations will encourage you to call back via a number you've obtained from a trustworthy source.
Do not assume that the number displayed on your phone is accurate, these can be spoofed, leading you to believe that the caller is in the UK or from a trusted organisation.
Don't call phone numbers on pop-up messages which indicate there is a problem with your computer.
The offices of Vision Call Services was one of the locations targeted. A statement from the Kolkata Police said they had found an illegal call centre in operation, with callers introducing themselves as officials from Microsoft. A number of computers and hard disks were seized, and four people were arrested.

'A warning'

Commander Karen Baxter of the City of London Police said the international operation sent a message to criminals: "Overseas fraudsters should see this as a warning: we will use every tactic in our power to halt your pernicious criminal activities."

The fraudsters use a variety of techniques to extract cash from their victims. Sometimes they use popup ads to offer a worthless anti-virus protection package, or they call claiming they have detected a fault on your PC.

But often they persuade their victims to give them remote access to their computers. Once they have achieved that, they move on to getting into their target's online bank account.

Commander Baxter says these are unscrupulous criminals who will stop at nothing to bleed their victims dry: "They are very convincing, tenacious and have developed sophisticated systems in an effort to elude capture."

Microsoft welcomed the success of the operation in Kolkata. The firm's UK head of legal affairs Hugh Milward said:"Effective public-private partnerships are essential if we are to combat sophisticated cyber criminals who operate on a global scale."

The company says it will never cold call people to offer technical support.

Mr Varey says he feels "a plonker" for having fallen for the scam but he wants to help others avoid being deceived.

"The money is gone but what I really want to do is stop other people falling for this same scam."

Prison call centres aim to cut reoffending risk

Prisoners across Wales are being paid to work as call centre operators to try to help them get jobs as soon as they are released.

None of the inmates at Cardiff, Swansea or Berwyn has access to personal data and all will be strictly vetted.

It is hoped it will reduce offending rates, as well as providing skills needed to get a job.

Cardiff has around 17 call centre desks, Swansea has 24 and Berwyn has 140.

More firms are being encouraged to work with the Prison Service and a recent event at HMP Cardiff allowed representatives from contact centres to see inmates working at the prison's own small call centre.

Greg Fisher, the Prison Service's regional employment broker for Wales, works with companies to smooth the transition into work.

He said giving prisoners work experience before they are released is important.

"It engages them with the community and local employers," he said. "If they haven't got that they will go back to the life of crime."

How does a prison call centre work?
The calls handled by men inside HMP Cardiff are computer-generated.

They sit in front of the desk, head-set on, script in front of them, waiting for a call to be connected.

The only detail they have is the name of the person they are calling.

Their job on the day we visited was market research for a big utilities firm - they told me it is the best paid of the work available in prison.

Once trained, they can earn £15 a week, plus 20p for each completed questionnaire and more still if the customer is happy to be transferred to discuss switching providers.

HMP Cardiff trains prisoners with skills like car and bike maintenance, cleaning and construction and has a rail track programme including their own tracks within the prison walls.

It has also recently opened a coffee-making workshop.

"We're trying to get them that route into employment, into some meaningful very well paid work," Mr Fisher said, adding that a £2,500 training programme is far less than the £32,000 annual cost of a place at a Category B prison like Cardiff.

"That small investment I think is really worthwhile."

'Talented people'
Kelly Carrel, founder of a social enterprise called Census Life, runs the call centres in 14 prisons in England and Wales, and said the ex-offenders she now employs are among the most loyal and hard working she has taken on.

"Those individuals really want to work and make positive changes to their lives - not just for them, but their partners and children," she added.

"In general there are far too many organisations that have a blanket 'no' to working with an offender, I can understand it in particular roles.

"But there are some great, talented people that we're just not tapping into."
 Nicola's opportunity came with a chance to work in a prison call centre
'Take that chance'
One of Census Life's employees, Nicola, is a former offender and said a job with a supportive employer meant she broke the cycle of offending.

Her problems had started after she was the victim of domestic violence, which led to a 10-year drug addiction.

"My message to employers would be take that chance," she said. "You're creating a change in society, you have the tools to change someone's life and you will create a very loyal colleague."

Sandra Busby, managing director of the Welsh Contact Centre Forum, said: "We have three customer types in Wales - public centre contact centres, corporates and smaller businesses.

"I think the public sector can be doing a lot more, but they're very process-driven. But if they can't lead by example I think it's hard then to tell the private sector to do that."

She added the "really cutting edge" corporate firms will make changes to harness the talent of ex-prisoners, and smaller firms will be more agile, but will also have to weigh up the risks.
Source: BBC

More people than ever before work in call centres in the UK

The chimney of the India Mill factory in Darwen, Lancashire, still stands today. When it was built in 1867, it was the tallest and the most expensive in the country but its shadow now falls over office space rather than the industrial machinery it used to.


This is a scene that has become increasingly common across the UK as the service industry expands across what William Blake once described as this "green and pleasant land". At the same time, the manufacturing industry has contracted sharply.


Immediately after World War II, manufacturing accounted for around 40% of the UK economy's output but now only 8% of jobs are in the manufacturing sector, according to the Office for National Statistics.


At the same time, the rise of the call centre in uk - known in the industry as contact centres - has seemed unstoppable.

'Toilet monitor'

"More people have worked in call centres than ever worked in the mining industry, and I researched that in 1998," says Matt Thorne, who wrote a novel based on his experiences in a call centre.

"The interesting thing about call centres is they're great if you've got something else but it's like a proper job without any of the benefits.

"You got four 15-minute breaks in a day and the amount of time you spent in toilets actually was monitored."

Over one million people are employed in contact centres, according to analysis firm ContactBabel. This is over 3.5% of the entire UK workforce.

When call centre pioneer Direct Line opened its lines in Croydon, south London, with 63 employees on 2 April 1985, no-one could have imagined the impact it would have on the UK's service industry. In 2004 it received over 22 million phone calls.

But many just see them as a nuisance. Time and time again, call centres have been voted one of the most frustrating things to use, with one survey even concluding that calling one is more stressful than getting married or going to the dentist.

"They were predominantly set up as a way for companies to save money - whether the customers liked it or not," says Ann-Marie Stagg - chairwoman of the Contact Centre Managers' Association.

You don't hear about workers having to put their hand up to go to the toilet anymore

Steve Morrell, Indusry analyst

And if just phoning up a call centre was stressful, imagine working with a pre-determined script and repeating it day after day.

"The aim was to get everything done in 35 seconds, so there's not really a lot of room for warmth," says comedian Andy White, who worked in a call centre until 2002.

"The bonus system was very difficult because part of it was based on the people around you so people were thinking 'why should I bother?' when it only takes one person to not turn up for the figures to suffer and then there goes my bonus."

It is this perception of call centres, as a telephonic battery farm with repetitive work like factories from generations ago, that the industry is desperately working to change.

Source: BBC