Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

Hiring an offshore call center provider can make even the most seasoned executive a little bit nervous. In reality, there are many reasons to be nervous. An external company is being hired to speak directly with your customers on your behalf. However, these concerns can be overcome by hiring the right call center. 

Here are the top outsourcing concerns:

Preview Dialer: In Preview mode, the agent starts by himself the next call (semi-automatic preview dialing) on a software-based selection process. The preview dialing ensures that the call center staff can preview the record from the customer database. If the agent triggers the call attempt by himself, he has also opportunity to prepare for the interview and detailed view (for example the contact history). The employee initiates the call either by using software or by manually dialing the telephone number.

Power Dialer: The dialer software automatically dials the next phone connection as soon as the processing of the previous record was completed by the agent. This can be done by the software on the client or on the central server. It can be set with an "overdial factor" that not only one but several telephone lines per agent get to be established. The dialing attempts are doing mostly displayed in the selection preview on the workplace of the agents. The first successful selection is presented. Other successful dialing attempts are distributed by chance on the next available agent. In the calculations involved, that usually not all numbers dialed indicate a dial tone, but might be busy or unavailable for other reasons. 

Predictive Dialer: Even with predictive dialing the telephone numbers of the contact list or database of the company or service provider get selected automatically. In addition, the dialer software monitored by mathematical methods continually in several ways, such as the current availability or the average call duration of each employee, and includes this in the calculation for the selections. The Predictive dialing is thus a forward-looking, self-adjusting dial. The predictive dialer controls the number of dial attempts per agent, taking into account the current and historical accessibility of customers and on the basis of the derived prediction. This not only minimizes the waiting time between two contacts of the agent, but also provides the ideal case that as many calls as possible are made without call attempts must be canceled. Lost connections causing the called phone rings, after picking up is no caller on the other end available or it rings only for a very short time (dropped call). Consumers perceive this as harassing or threatening.

Regulations:

In the UK, Ofcom requires that predictive dialers abandon less than 3% of answered calls on a daily basis. Ofcom also requires that if an agent is not available within 2 seconds the call is considered "abandoned" and an automated message is played. The automated message must identify the company making the call, the purpose of the call, a free phone or basic rate phone number to call back on and must not contain any form of marketing. A phone call to the return number must not be treated by the company as an opportunity to market, but to be removed from the calling list. In the UK "abandoned" calls must not be called back within 72 hours unless there is a dedicated agent available.

In the USA, if someone answers but no agent is available within 2 seconds of the person's greeting, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations consider the call "abandoned" and require the dialer to play a recorded message. The FCC requires that predictive dialers abandon less than 3% of answered calls.

In Canada, the maximum abandon rate is 5%, and calls cannot be made to numbers registered with the National Do Not Call Registry, emergency or health care providers.

I found an offer for a campaign on Facebook, where the typical words for a SCAM (limited seats only) have been written. I dropped my standard comment at this posting.

I did not need to wait a long time and I got a reply from Amrin Khan. There she had written: "and the things you are commenting is even spoiling the real people also". This reply has been the reason to take a closer look into her profile.

A Google image search brought two videos and 291 pictures. I did not need to search a for a long time and found her profile picture at a site bangalore.localnexo.in where she offered herself as "LOW PRICE GIRLS IN BANGALORA"

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones

Update Jan. 18, 2017:
Link to the Facebook profile Amrin Khan (https://www.facebook.com/mehevish.khan) removed as it returns error 404 - not found.

Yesterday I got an email with the content that sage.co.uk or staff from them is scamming center owners. As Sage is a big software company from UK I did not believe it. Why should a big company be in need to take a few thousands or Pounds from center owners?

The content of the email has been:

I got Cheated by person called Sameer Ahuja , Ranveer swamy and Leisa Dorcherty , In the name of Business they took $ 490  Fraudulently and Now they are not receiving call and not replying mail also I filed a complaint in Near by Police station , 
sameer Ahuja  Skype id : sameer.sage-inc  , Mobile Number (Office ) - 00447509754621 , (personnel) - 00447509756623

Ranveer Swamy skype id : ranveer.sage-inc
Leisa Dorcherty skype id : leisa.sage-inc
Account number which they have given
Bank Name : State Bank of India
Name: Ranveer Swami
Account no.- 20176913465
IFSC code: SBIN0001161
Branch- IIT Kanpur

Let us verify the data, which seem to be true of this scam.

If someone calls you and he is transmitting his caller id, then it is possible to call him back. If the same person picks up the call than you have at least a phone number, which can get verified. In our case it is a little bit difficult, because the UK data protection act don’t let you make a reverse phone lookup.

Under the UK's data protection act, reverse phone number lookups are against the law. There are however a couple of options, depending on your situation.

If you are receiving nuisance calls, then you should contact your phone provider and lodge a complaint. Should the problem persist, then contacting the police is an option.

Only the area can get located where the call comes from. In our case is it a mobile phone from the area of Jersey.

By having the phone number and the location we find the first reason why the scam is not from Sage. Jersey is in an Island in front of the coast of France. It belongs to the UK territory. Sage is located in Newcastle upon Tyne. If we use Google maps and let us calculate a route, than we see that the shortest route is 781 km and it takes around 11 hours to drive the route without respecting the possible traffic and resulting traffic jam. Nobody will drive to his workplace this distance. On the other side nobody will use a mobile phone from an area, which is around 800km away from his home or workplace and where he needs to use even a ferry going to the island.

The office and the private phone numbers are mobile phone numbers.  A big company like Sage has a land line phone number for their office. They are not using mobile phones for their office.  Manager from a company with the size of Sage will not give you their private phone number. Leisa Docherty is a manager from Sage.

Additional to the reason that you need not pay in Europe for getting some work you can easily verify such offers, which are coming from such companies. Sage has published some phone numbers at their website the offer can get easily verified if you are calling one of their phone numbers. If you have really a contact with one of the manager, then you will be able to pass the gatekeeper.

The next information which seems to be true is the bank account number, because the scammer likes to get the money. The name can be already a fake. It is the age of electronic transactions. For this the name will not get verified during a transaction from the bank as long as the account number is correct.

A company like Sage will every time use their real bank account and not a private account from someone in India. The reason for this is the strict tax law in Europe. Each company need to have a correct financial bookkeeping, which gets verified from time to time from tax officers of the government.

The only possible way to catch the scammer is over their phone number and their bank account.  In our case it the scammer located in India, because the bank account is there. The phone number gets simple forwarded by Voice over IP to any place in the world. Don’t let yourself get fooled bank accounts are normally in the same area where the company is registered. With the usage of electronic banking you have access to your bank account all over the world. For this there is no reason to have a bank account abroad if you have not an affiliate in the country abroad.

All other information cannot get verified. The LinkedIn accounts could got hacked and everybody can chose his Skype ID how he likes to name it. There is no verification for company names by creating an account. Each free combination can get chosen.

Companies are using for their contracts their own registered domain names for sending and receiving emails. Only people, which have something to hide, are hiding themselves by using freemail accounts. Companies, which are using official such freemail accounts have listed them on their homepage too.

The only criticism that can be made sage.co.uk is that they do not respond to emails. Apparently they do not care that criminals are using the name of SAGE. A company that not even not care about the crime, where her name is used, will not take care of the interests of their clients. This is the sign of today's society. Everyone cares only about their personal profits and the profit of their shareholders.

The scammer are speculating with the greed of the people. So don't see the proposed winning - take a look if you are not pay for get nothing!!! A good name in the offer does not guarantee something. Use your brain and make in each case a background check!!!

The Tor software protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked.

The Tor Browser lets you use Tor on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser to protect your anonymity, and is self-contained.

Want Tor to really work?

You need to change some of your habits, as some things won't work exactly as you are used to.

• Use the Tor Browser
  Tor does not protect all of your computer's Internet traffic when you run it. Tor only protects your applications that are properly configured to send their Internet traffic through Tor. To avoid problems with Tor configuration, we strongly recommend you use the Tor Browser. It is pre-configured to protect your privacy and anonymity on the web as long as you're browsing with the Tor Browser itself. Almost any other web browser configuration is likely to be unsafe to use with Tor.
  
  
• Don't torrent over Tor
  Torrent file-sharing applications have been observed to ignore proxy settings and make direct connections even when they are told to use Tor. Even if your torrent application connects only through Tor, you will often send out your real IP address in the tracker GET request, because that's how torrents work. Not only do you deanonymize your torrent traffic and your other simultaneous Tor web traffic this way, you also slow down the entire Tor network for everyone else.
  
  
• Don't enable or install browser plugins
  The Tor Browser will block browser plugins such as Flash, RealPlayer, Quicktime, and others: they can be manipulated into revealing your IP address. Similarly, we do not recommend installing additional addons or plugins into the Tor Browser, as these may bypass Tor or otherwise harm your anonymity and privacy.
  
  
• span style="font-weight: bold;">Use HTTPS versions of websites
  Tor will encrypt your traffic to and within the Tor network, but the encryption of your traffic to the final destination website depends upon on that website. To help ensure private encryption to websites, the Tor Browser includes HTTPS Everywhere to force the use of HTTPS encryption with major websites that support it. However, you should still watch the browser URL bar to ensure that websites you provide sensitive information to display a blue or green URL bar button, include https:// in the URL, and display the proper expected name for the website. Also see EFF's interactive page explaining how Tor and HTTPS relate.
  
  
• Don't open documents downloaded through Tor while online
  The Tor Browser will warn you before automatically opening documents that are handled by external applications. DO NOT IGNORE THIS WARNING. You should be very careful when downloading documents via Tor (especially DOC and PDF files) as these documents can contain Internet resources that will be downloaded outside of Tor by the application that opens them. This will reveal your non-Tor IP address. If you must work with DOC and/or PDF files, we strongly recommend either using a disconnected computer, downloading the free VirtualBox and using it with a virtual machine image with networking disabled, or using Tails. Under no circumstances is it safe to use BitTorrent and Tor together, however.
  
  
• Use bridges and/or find company
  Tor tries to prevent attackers from learning what destination websites you connect to. However, by default, it does not prevent somebody watching your Internet traffic from learning that you're using Tor. If this matters to you, you can reduce this risk by configuring Tor to use a Tor bridge relay rather than connecting directly to the public Tor network. Ultimately the best protection is a social approach: the more Tor users there are near you and the more diverse their interests, the less dangerous it will be that you are one of them. Convince other people to use Tor, too!

Be smart and learn more. Understand what Tor does and does not offer. This list of pitfalls isn't complete, and TOR need your help identifying and documenting all the issues.

Source and download: https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html