How scam call centers work, according to a 'scambaiter'

Insider

Jim Browning is a software engineer and an expert on scam call centers. His YouTube channel baits scammers by gaining access to their computers, observing them through CCTV, and hacking into their networks. He then conveys this information to law enforcement. Scam call centers operate by manipulating victims into disclosing personal and financial information over the phone. These centers typically impersonate credible companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, or government agencies, like the IRS. Browning spoke to Insider about the structure of scam call centers’ offices, recruitment, and payroll. He also discusses money laundering, the role of police and law enforcement, and solutions for data security. Find his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@JimBrowning  Anyone who has fallen victim to an online scam can report it to the Federal Trade Commission  https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

Transcript

00:00 I'm Jim Browning, I'm known as a scam baiter and I hack into scammers CCTV and I've managed to close

00:06 down hundreds of scam call centers. This is how crime works. What I do is disrupt multi-million

00:16 dollar scams, the ringleaders exposed and those people have an awful lot of money behind them.

00:23 Why the silhouette? Well it can be quite dangerous, you can imagine the type of things that

00:28 they may decide to do to stop me. Up until recently I had a normal day job and sometimes

00:41 I would work at home and I would constantly get the same phone calls that I think most people get

00:48 and you instantly know it's a scam. But I was getting those so often that it was

00:53 interrupting my normal work. I thought I'm an engineer, I know about computers, know about

01:00 networks, maybe I can do something about this or at least I want to find out what it is they're

01:05 really after and maybe report the people in the hope that I could stop the calls. I encountered

01:13 Fairmark travels back in 2019, they were operating a pop-up scam. I was browsing the internet,

01:20 suddenly this message pops up saying I've got a virus and I had to call a number that locked my

01:24 keyboard and mouse. From experience I know that that's a scam but I deliberately called the

01:30 number. They told me that they were a Microsoft affiliate and they needed access to my computer

01:37 but I have this little trick where if someone connects to my computer I can reverse that

01:44 connection and that enables me to see their computer. I was able to find out quite a lot of

01:50 data and video and audio. Of course the people on the end of the phone are primed to persuade you

01:56 that you've got a computer problem. They will want you to, although they may not say the words

02:01 remote access to your computer, they will deliberately misdiagnose it and to fix that

02:08 problem, even though there's no problem, you would have to pay them and it varies anywhere between

02:14 maybe a few hundred pounds up to a few thousand pounds. They will talk reasonably technical

02:22 sounding language deliberately but it's all just a script. Most people who are victims of that scam

02:29 think that it's some friendly person trying to help them out when in fact there was nothing

02:34 wrong whatsoever. It's not just done once, they're scammed multiple times after that.

02:38 The setup can be very tiny. You can run a scam call centre out of a hotel room.

02:50 You don't need particularly expensive computers to run a scam and I think a lot of scammers know

02:56 that and what I typically find is they will run the oldest of old computers just because

03:03 they're cheap. The average scam call centre has between 10 and 20 people. Fairmark Travels, they

03:10 set themselves up as a travel agency. They were running out of two buildings in a suburb of New

03:16 Delhi. In those days the front offices were all running legitimate work but in literally the

03:24 offices behind that building they ran a scam operation. In fact they used the same telephone

03:30 system that they did for their legitimate work but in the background they would run this scam

03:36 call centre. So they had almost a perfect setup so that if the police ever did raid the places

03:43 they could always point the police to their legitimate work. They actually recorded their

03:48 phone calls and I was able to download over 70,000 scam phone calls from other operators in that room.

03:58 [Phone ringing]

04:04 It did help that I could see the supervisor's computer so I could see the messages

04:09 going from the people who actually operated the calls right back to the CEO of the company.

04:17 So if you can think about any normal office organisation they had exactly that structure.

04:23 The agents are incentivised on how much money they make and because of that they get a bonus

04:30 at the end of the month. So they had supervisors who would tot up every agent's performance and

04:37 if you can make more than 30 successful calls for example you will make more money. I have seen in

04:44 other operations that if you don't make your targets typically you're out of the business

04:49 completely. It was an operation that ran 24 by 7. They would have different shifts so they would

04:56 target Australia early in their daytime, it would move to Europe in the afternoons and evenings and

05:03 then at night time it would be the USA. There was another person who was the accountant for the

05:08 company. They knew which channel it came from so what sort of scam operation they were running that

05:14 day, which country it involved, which currency it involved, which payment gateway it involved.

05:19 You would have all the detail of that money going into huge spreadsheets and of course then that

05:25 would be laundered elsewhere. So they had everything you would expect in a real office

05:31 building. They had a HR department, quality assurance department, they would actually

05:36 listen to some of the scam phone calls and feed back to the agents how they could run the scam

05:42 better. I was able to see exactly what the CEO was doing because there was a CCTV camera in his

05:49 office. It was the only one with audio and he would spend a small portion of the day looking

05:55 after his legitimate business, the travel agency business. But an awful long part of the day was

06:02 spent making sure that the next type of scam was going to happen. I did hear him discussing

06:11 an Amazon scam and how he would set that up, things like how they would process the money were discussed.

06:17 Occasionally I will encounter networks of money launderers and if they're asking victims to

06:30 transfer money, normally it will be to a bank account in their own country. And the reason

06:36 for that is it's much much more simple for money to go out of a victim account into a local bank

06:41 account, a reasonably local bank account. But of course it hasn't got back to the scammer yet so

06:47 there has to be a network of people who will take that initial transfer and move it between a number

06:54 of countries. An average scam will have at least one money mule in the UK, one money mule at least

07:02 in a different country other than India, typically Thailand. And between them they will move money

07:08 between jurisdictions. I have seen telegram and Skype groups specifically set up to allow money

07:16 transfers to happen. So I know with Fairmark Technologies I was able to see exactly where

07:22 the money went when it came between the victims and right through to the company. So I could see

07:29 as each payment was being made there was an individual transaction in PayPal which went to

07:35 a company called Adrit Technologies. And Amit Chauhan is the CEO of or was the CEO of Adrit

07:44 Technologies. So I got a direct payment link between the victims and his company. And I could

07:50 tell that he was making at least tens of thousands of dollars per month but it was closer to a hundred

07:56 thousand dollars a month. What they would get is average about ten to twelve thousand dollars

08:02 just from scams each day. But I've seen call centers which are upwards of 200 employees

08:09 and they can make you know more than eight million dollars a month. Now I have encountered

08:15 a victim in the UK who had already lost a hundred thousand pounds to scammers. People write to me as

08:23 well to say that they have lost a lot more than that again. And again there's practically nothing

08:29 I can do once the money has already been stolen. Seeking out victims, criminals absolutely use

08:43 social media. I'm on a Facebook group where scammers sell people's personal data and there's

08:53 very little enforcement for that. They will also sell things like credit card numbers. Those are

08:58 sold openly on Facebook. I get to hear a lot of the calls that scammers make and I've heard everything

09:06 from teenagers right through to people in well in their 90s falling for these. The type of scam

09:13 that I look at are more likely to affect older people. Fairmark travels were a little bit

09:18 different from the average scam call center that I look at because they pay a third party

09:24 to put adverts onto websites and the advert itself is called a malvert, a malicious advert.

09:32 It goes full screen, has a bit of very loud audio saying your computer is a virus,

09:38 but most importantly it has a phone number on it. The one way to tell whether it's a scam

09:43 is a phone number. If you see a phone number on your screen, 100% of the time that was is

09:49 going to be a scam. Your antivirus will not ask you to call a phone number. They wait for victims

09:55 to come to them, then they would simply get the inbound calls. That's how they seek out victims.

10:06 The kind of victim they're after is somebody who's not computer literate. I have to lull them

10:12 into a false sense of security, so I have to appear convincing. I can't be somebody who

10:18 is very good with computers, type stuff in really quickly because they'll instantly get suspicious.

10:25 So whenever I engage with scammers, I have a voice changer. I know in advance what my name,

10:30 address, credit card and everything else will be. I also have a fake bank page, which I will

10:37 deliberately flash or show to a scammer to make it look as if I have loads of money. All I need

10:44 is a little bit of knowledge about the system they use to make that phone call for me to hear

10:51 other phone calls. I not only can hear the calls, I can see the phone numbers they are calling,

10:57 and I can see a phone call has lasted more than, say, five minutes. It's very likely that that

11:03 person is being scammed. And what I do is typically call the person when they've hung up and say,

11:09 "By the way, did you know that you were not speaking with your bank or you were not speaking

11:13 with Amazon?" And that is quite often a surprise to the people who've been on the phone for so long,

11:20 because they can be incredibly persuasive. They use terminology all the time. There's never a

11:31 victim. There's always a customer. So you're a customer, of course, and that's the term I

11:37 kind of hate because not one person that I encounter is a real customer in any shape or form.

11:44 Yes, process. And whenever you go for an interview in a scam call centre,

11:49 you have to use the term an Amazon process or a banking process or refund the process.

11:56 But that is just shorthand for the refund scam or the bank scam or whatever. Whenever they build a

12:02 rapport with their victims, everyone will sound just like their grandmother or their grandfather,

12:08 because that way they sound more endearing. Obviously, when I can see one computer,

12:20 just like the phone system, I can potentially also see the CCTV system that he used. A good

12:26 example is FairMart. I can see the guy actually run up his CCTV cameras and he logged in with

12:34 the username of admin and an eight character password. It enabled me then to log in and just

12:42 use the computer or the CCTV. The scam room itself actually had four cameras pointing all four

12:48 directions, each corner of the room. It was difficult to know exactly who you're speaking

12:52 to. Obviously, they give fake names, but knowing that they will want to connect to my computer,

12:59 the very easy thing to do is to change my desktop background to a very garish colour,

13:04 like purple or green or something. And then as the scammer connects to it, look on the CCTV and see

13:11 who has got the green or purple screen. And then I can pinpoint and go, ah, right, I'm speaking to

13:16 that particular guy in the corner there. That's the one I'm going to focus on. So I'll be kind

13:22 of picking up bits and pieces of files, which may be on their computers, again, just to help identify

13:28 who they are. Sometimes some of the computers have ID card information or spreadsheets with

13:35 real names on it. So I'll be kind of looking for that. I know this is a little bit vague, but

13:39 equally, I don't want to let the scammers know exactly all of my tricks, but there are definitely

13:46 techniques that I can use to figure out exactly what they're doing. I was in the fortunate position

13:52 that not only could I see live CCTV, but they actually had recordings of historic events.

14:00 And when I did rewind the footage, I could see them position certain cameras and actually turn

14:06 them around. I was able to kind of roughly work out where things were, but I still couldn't figure

14:11 it out. So I have a colleague who does something very similar to me. He's called Karl Rock,

14:17 and he's in India. He has got a drone. And I asked him, would you be able to help me

14:23 take photographs to kind of figure out where the scam officers are? He flew the drone

14:29 over the top of the main building and then out to the back of the building as well.

14:34 When it comes to reporting crime, it's actually very difficult in India.

14:43 The best way to get any action on the ground from India is to go directly to the local police where

14:51 that call centre is nearest. It is not enough to say the people in that building are pretending

14:57 to be a bank or Amazon. What I have to do is present a victim to the local police to say,

15:04 this person has had money stolen and it comes from that building and here are the people involved.

15:11 And that makes it very, very difficult. Obviously, I try to approach the police to say,

15:16 this scam is operating on your doorstep, but quite often that's ignored. And it's kind of a

15:22 tolerated scam. If you seem to be stealing money from rich Westerners, for an example,

15:28 that may be less of a crime in those countries than maybe other types of crime.

15:34 Now, in the case of Fairmart, I was working with a documentary team, the BBC were involved.

15:39 The police became interested only because of that involvement. Then the police raided those

15:45 buildings. So they arrested Amit Chauhan. They dismissed the case because there wasn't enough

15:50 evidence. I would love to see tougher laws when it comes to call centres. I think there should be

15:56 laws to say, if you're running a call centre, you have to give the person you're speaking

16:04 to the details of who you are, where you are, your real name and your real company name.

16:10 It would be easier, I think, to prosecute some of the scam call centres and maybe that's the way

16:16 to reduce some of them at least. I actually ask scammers, why do you do this? The answers that

16:28 I usually get, there will be people who say the only way that I can make money is through scamming.

16:34 And undoubtedly that's the case. But everybody's different. There are not enough jobs for young

16:41 people. And don't forget, these people in general, they speak English, so they're well educated.

16:47 They come from the equivalent of middle class backgrounds. They have their education levels.

16:56 I've seen the CVs sitting on some of the computers. They generally know what they're getting into.

17:01 So if there was an opportunity to have another job, some will tell me that they will take those

17:09 other jobs. And some of them do say, I have no choice. I'm only going to do this for a year or

17:14 two. I personally think the primary reason is the reason why so many people are in it is greed.

17:21 I have had scammers who have said, well, I do this as kind of revenge for colonial corruption.

17:28 I do speak to some scammers who do have a conscience and some of them have already

17:33 reached out to me and exposed their own bosses in the whole thing. And that's admirable. India

17:40 is more than likely where your robocall is going to come from, which is a really sad reflection

17:46 on India, because India is a fantastic country. But it now means that people,

17:53 when they hear an Indian accent on the phone, are just that more wary. And that is incredibly sad.

17:58 Other than India, I have personally encountered ones in Ukraine and Tunisia. The Tunisian

18:05 call centre targeted French speaking countries, including France.

18:16 There's a few different ways that scammers will attempt to find victims. And I guess the primary

18:21 one, someone pretending to be your bank or a large company like Amazon, unfortunately,

18:27 if you've got a landline, that is a typical thing you will hear every single day. And

18:33 one of the biggest ones, for example, is a fake invoice. If you've started a conversation with

18:39 a scammer, they'd want to get at your money and they will target you in a few different ways.

18:45 The first one is wanting access to your computer and therefore wanting access to your bank account.

18:51 They will get you to make a transfer, they'll blacken your screen and they'll make the transfer.

18:55 The other one is they don't really need or want access to your computer, but they will try to

18:59 convince you to go to your bank and move money by socially engineering you to send money or

19:06 withdraw money, put it in a box and people unbelievably still do this and send it to

19:11 another address. And the third one is they will persuade you to go out and buy a gift card. And

19:16 there's different ways that they can do that and read out the gift card number. And if you do that,

19:21 that's equivalent to directly putting it into a scammer's account. And the most obvious way

19:25 these days of getting money cleanly for scammers is to use cryptocurrency.

19:33 There's other sorts of scams. You may have seen SMS messages saying there's a parcel being

19:38 delivered or a different sort of SMS message targeting someone in your family. Recently,

19:45 I've come across a group who were operating out of London and they were pretending to be the son or

19:51 daughter of someone who had lost their phone. So they would send a message saying, Hi, mom,

19:57 I've lost my phone. This is my new number. Can you contact me on this? I need to get some money quickly.

20:03 It's not easy having multiple identities and I have my own family life to deal with,

20:15 like everybody else. Doing this in the evening times did take up an awful lot of time. So

20:19 I do work very odd hours and I have to keep the same hours as scammers do. So,

20:25 you know, I'm on the night shift just with the scammers as well. So it can be difficult.

20:30 I have worked in IT for quite a number of years, although these days I could maybe teach a course

20:36 on it. I haven't got the formal qualifications because I have dug into scams more than the

20:43 average person. I probably know scams better than most scammers. I'm still learning. I still

20:49 want to understand better some of the systems that scammers use. They evolve, but I would like to

20:55 think I evolve with them. I am working on projects that will help victims using AI before scammers

21:04 start using AI against victims. So I have a YouTube page. The channel name is Jim Browning,

21:10 which is dedicated to combating scammers.

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