Industry body Nasscom said it is working both with both Washington and Indian authorities to ensure call centre impostor frauds originating from India do not impact the long-term health of the Indian BPO industry.

This is in response to the statement by a US government official on Wednesday that called out Indian call centres as a source of various importer frauds that have targeted Americans.

“Another area of international concern involves Indian call centres, which like their Jamaican counterparts, continue to be the source of various imposter frauds that have reached consumers throughout the English-speaking world,” said Lois Greisman, Associate Director of the Division of Marketing Practices, in the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The fraud cases often involve an imposter calling someone posing as a technical support executive or a bank official who is trying to solve an issue for them and in the process dupes them into either sharing their financial details or transferring money into his account.

“As a Chairman of Nasscom BPM council, we are very proactively creating steps and recommendations, both the industry members and government can take in order to deal with these unscrupulous elements. These are people who are not members of the regulated industry,” Keshav Murugesh, Chairman, Nasscom BPM Council and Group CEO at WNS Global Services, told BusinessLine .

“We are coming up with specifications in order to make sure that the police force can be trained and can take a suitable action because it is something we need to do for a long-term health of the industry,” he said.

Meeting with FTC Murugesh pointed out that one of the senior Nasscom member attended a meeting with FTC in Washington to discuss steps required to tackle such frauds and would continue to work with US government in future.

“We are working in tandem with various agencies to ensure India is positioned rightly. We’ll ensure that any unscrupulous individual or company who is indulging in such activities is taken care of,” Murugesh said.

The FTC is also talking to Indian law enforcement agencies and conducting training sessions to better tackle the situation. FTC has already organised three stakeholder meetings, including two in India, to develop a coordinated and multi-prong approach to this threat.

“The most recent event, held this May in Washington, D.C., included representatives from several major technology companies, US, Canadian and UK law enforcement, the Indian call centre industry group, and Indian government officials. One result of this collaboration is a four-city law enforcement training in India this summer, in which the FTC is participating, aimed at developing Indian law enforcement’s capacity to arrest and prosecute the India-based individuals who perpetrate these frauds,” Greisman said.

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