The use of Indian call centres to make fake, and often threatening, debt collector calls to consumers in the US is unfortunate but must be seen as a one-off thing, said Mr Som Mittal, President of Nasscom.
“This is not something rampant and could have been supported from any call centre anywhere in the world,” he said.
India, the Mecca of the call centre industry, received a blow to its reputation when Federal authorities in the US cracked down on a company in California that used call centres in India for collecting fake debts from people in the US.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a suit against American Credit Crunchers, related company Ebeeze LLC and their owner Varang Thaker who is reported to have withdrawn immense amounts of money from the bank accounts of these companies.
Thaker obtained information such as social security and bank account numbers about consumers who had applied for online payday loans.
Thacker and the companies (through Indian call centres) would then pretend to be law enforcement authorities or attorneys and make calls to people saying they were delinquent on a loan and that they had never taken. They would harass and threaten consumers so that many paid the alleged debts from fear or being arrested or sued.
The callers were convincing because they knew the social security and bank numbers of the consumers.
On a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission, a US district court ordered that all such calls be stopped and froze the operation's assets.
“This is a brazen operation and the FTC is committed to shutting it down,” said Mr. David Vladeck, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
The calls were made in an Indian accent according to the FTC complaint.
“We haven't studied the entire case but one has to understand that fraud happens across the world. Who is using whom we don't know. And India provides end to end services from coding onwards,” said Mr Mittal.
“We are happy that the fraudsters have been caught, but one cannot generalise that Indian call centres are being used like this,” said Mr Mittal.