Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

Blog about offshore outsourcing and scammer in the outsourcing industry

Analyzing the sage.co.uk SCAM – avoid to get scammed this way

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!!!

 

Analyzing the offers for offshore call centers

For this we need to know first why companies like to outsource to offshore call center.

The answer is very simple. They like to maximize their earnings.  The average income in the high wage countries for telemarketer is around $20 per hour (Source: indeed.com from February 2015). Depending on the country are here additional expenses for the staff necessary. The real costs of a staff will be up to 50% higher than the salary of the staff.

A good and usable product is getting sold automatically if you present it in shops. There are other products like insurances, mortgages, etc. which are getting offered from brokers. Most of the insurances are offering combined packages, which are offering a discount. If the customer takes out one package of this group the price for the remaining things in the package will rise.

If a company offers a new combined package, then it has to have better conditions for the customer.  In this case the company needs to sell more of these packages to have the same winnings. No one gets money as a gift and the company needs to earn money too. This cannot be done by lowering the price for the customer without lowering the cost of sales too. The commission for the sales people will decrease for maximizing the profit of the company and their shareholders. Such a procedure results in a downward spiral in price and performance.

The costs for hiring offshore telemarketing centers are around at a quarter of the onshore prices. Mostly are their products simple not sellable or even the winnings not big enough for paying per hour. For this the most companies found here are offering only pay per sale.

This behavior is very short-sighted, because local people are losing their jobs. People, which have lost their job, have less or no money available. These peoples need to reduce their expenses too for having enough to survive until they find a new job. For this the companies are losing potential buyers. This is leading to the next downward spiral, where the products need to get cheaper and cheaper to get new customers. As nobody can offer the same performance for less money, the performance gets reduced too until the product is getting useless.

Such products shall get sold by using offshore call centers. In the most of the cases the companies are too greedy for supplying data (phone numbers and names) for the call center. The call center should even take the risk about the data. As the most serious data provider in the high wage country are selling data only locally, the international traded data are already heavily used and for this reason more or less useless. Nobody can perform with such kind of data.

The result is: SUCH COMPANIES ARE TO GREEDY AND DESTROY WITH THEIR GREEDINESS THEIR OWN BUSINESS!

 

You can use the following translation for the offers found here at LinkedIn or Facebook:

 

  • Pay per Sale
    The provider does not believe that his products can get sold or The provider does not believe that the call center can sell the products
    Why in this case he likes to go offshore?
    The reason is mostly that it is the last try before running into bankruptcy

  • High commission rate
    As higher the offered commission is as harder is it to sell the product.
    As higher the offered commission is as more useless is the product
    As higher the offered commission is as more financial problems the company has

  • No data provided
    The call center shall even take the risk and invest into the data for selling the product.
    The company has not enough funds already to invest into good data

  • Upfront payment, security deposit, etc.
    The company has not enough funds to pay the broker or to survive with out the payment of the "rich" call center owner. It is already too much what they are offering for this service.
Resume: The more of the above points apply as more dangerous it is for call center owners to strike a deal with such a company. The company can even running into bankruptcy when the call center performs very much. Don’t forget:  You cannot reach in the pocket of a naked one!
 
 

 

 

The Business Advisor Kaushik Ganguly, with "16 years experience", does not know for whom he is working

In the night I got a LinkedIn message from Kaushik Ganguly, Business Advisor and Management Consultant for ITES - Call Center industry with 16 years experience A part of this email is:

"what if center fails to perform? what if center fails to retain campaign? what if center do not work seriously? what if center do not have financial strength to run center? what if center close down for other reasons? AND most importantly ... what if center choose not to pay consultant/broker after getting payment from client?? Those all happened in real life with many people

If center talks about giving monthly payment to consultant ... why they can't pay the way they pay to Chartered Accountant, VOIP provider, Dialer company, Lead provider and many others? Why always they make a big issue of paying to consultant ... when they know getting a good profitable campaign is 500% more important then getting audit, voip, dialer or leads!! "

It seems that this "Business Advisor" does not know for whom he is working and who is paying the bill! He did not learn in "16 years" of experience how business is done. That is the same way like you pay for an attorney to bring you into jail.

If he get's paid from the outsourcing company, then he is in need to verify the center to which he suggest to outsource. This cannot only be done by verifying the business register and the credit-worthiness of the center. That has nothing to do with any upfront fee or any other similar fee, however it would get called. As soon as he takes from the chosen center some money he is running into a conflict of his and his customers interest.

If he get's paid from the center, which takes the outsourcing contract, then he is responsible for the credit-worthiness of the outsourcing company and that this company is a real company. Here he has to do the same inspections and researches about the outsourcing company.

If his client, there is no difference if his client is the outsourcing company or the center which is doing the outsourced work, is a fake, he is in a very bad situation, because he is liable to his client and has to compensate his clients damage, because it his fault if he did his research not in full. In this case the "broker" or however he likes to get called, has to show his identity too. Hiding themselves in the anonymity of the internet show only that the is not real and nobody shall do any business with him. Everybody should know that you cannot reach into pocket of a naked one.

What he has written is true, but the word "center" need to get replaced with the phrase "all participating parties".

In any case his explanations are showing only that he is promoting not existing services or campaigns to get new centers, because he stated in his email that he is starting his work for a center not before he gets the order. This is called betraying and is a criminal action, which will get prosecuted.

Even his company iNanoSoft Outsourcing has no domain. The only result found in Googles history is iNanoSoft.de. It has be a software company from Germany, which is already closed.

The LinkedIn Mail communication:

RE:The “genuine campaigns” from the brokers

Kaushik Ganguly Business Advisor and Management Consultant for ITES - Call Center industry with 16 years experience

 

12. Februar 2015, 17:10 Uhr

 

Sie und Kaushik Ganguly sind beide in einem Netzwerk oder einer Gruppe.

There are many misunderstanding and misconceptions around about call center business development ... as well as too much hypocrisy and foolishness. Let's analyse one by one - 

1) someone is making a call center ... without knowledge and experience about this industry? If they have experience ... then why they can't arrange business on their own? If they don't have experience ... then how they expect to get on their terms? 

2) It is demand and supply. If getting business is very easy ... no one will ask for a penny! If very tough ... you have to pay to get. It again depends on center's profile ... if they are big ... all will come to them ... if small center ... they have to try a lot and experiment 

3) People talking about consultant's role should not end with client SLA. Fine, then give him a proper role. Make him your advisor! Don't expect that you will treat someone as broker and he will give A-Z service ... don't demand like a kid! 

4) People expect that consultant (or broker ... whatever you call them) should give a direct client, give unlimited support and should not ask for money ... till center makes money!! Great .... but few questions ... what if center fails to perform? what if center fails to retain campaign? what if center do not work seriously? what if center do not have financial strength to run center? what if center close down for other reasons? AND most importantly ... what if center choose not to pay consultant/ broker after getting payment from client?? Those all happened in real life with many people 

5) If center talks about giving monthly payment to consultant ... why they can't pay the way they pay to Chartered Accountant, VOIP provider, Dialer company, Lead provider and many others? Why always they make a big issue of paying to consultant ... when they know getting a good profitable campaign is 500% more important then getting audit, voip, dialer or leads!! 

Only solution is to build a long term relationship between genuine center and genuine consultant ... based on mutual trust and confidence. Else one can go on bashing consultants/ brokers and end up being cry baby with no progress at all