Clamor to restore customer confidence after call-centre scam |
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Sat, 25 Jun 2005 20:20
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The expose of the call center scam by The Sun has shaken the confidence of customers in the security of their banking details. But banks have clamored to restore this confidence by issuing statements that their respective customers were safe from fraud.
The scam came to light after an undercover reporter allegedly got 1,000 British account numbers from a call centre employee; Kkaran Bahree, by paying him a sum of £3,000. The 24-yar-old self-styled computer analyst worked for Daksh eServices, a subsidiary of IBM, in Delhi's Gurgaon district. He is absconding at the moment.
The City of London Police has begun an investigation into the exact nature of the scam. They will also be investigating if any other institutions are vulnerable. Four financial institutions in the UK, Lloyds TSB, Halifax, HSBC and Barclays are looking into the alleged security breach, but they said that none of their accounts were at risk.
A Lloyds TSB spokesperson commented, "We have strict procedures in those call centres whereby staff are required to put all belongings in a locker and can't take bags or mobile phones to work stations. They should not have access to information like passport details and bank passwords ... so we are investigating how this has happened. The first we heard about it was when City of London police contacted us. We are taking the allegations very seriously." Orna Joseph, spokeswoman for City of London police, said, "It was a practice we were aware of. But it's quite rare in the scheme of things ... and we have been attempting to contact Delhi police over this."
HSBC, Britain's largest bank issued a statement saying that its customers were protected against identity theft, "We believe any information was accessed through other companies," spokesman Richard Beck said. Barclays spokesman Alan White said, "We have investigated every piece of data passed to us. It is now clear that this could not have come from Barclays Operations. All the indications are that this data has come from a third party who provides goods or services, which require their customers to provide bank details for credit or payment purposes. We are continuing to cooperate with the City of London Police in their search for the source."
India's National Association of Software and Service Companies, known as NASSCOM, issued a statement saying that a number of steps were already in place to protect the identities of overseas customers.
The association said that India continued to be a trustworthy destination for the outsourcing of call centers, "The problem is not unique to any single nation. It is one that can affect any country, and each of us has a responsibility to take on the criminals," the group said in a statement Thursday.
Prakash Gurbaxani, chief executive of TranWorks Ltd., which employs 3,500 workers, said, "I don't think anywhere in the world you can prevent 100 percent of people from committing crimes. I would say Indian law is comparable to the best in the world. Maybe the enforcement needs to be stepped up."
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