Last week, Amazon and Microsoft announced they would be partnering with the Central Bureau of Investigation, CBI, in India to help crack down on tech support scam calls.
As a result, the CBI raided 76 suspected illegal call centers in India as part of Operation Chakra-II. During the raids, officials seized 32 mobile phones, 48 laptops and/or hard disks, images of two servers, 33 SIM cards, 15 email accounts and pen drives as well as froze multiple bank accounts.
The following day, officials working on Chakra-II uncovered an international online investment fraud targeting Indian citizens and identified almost 140 shell companies engaged in illegal activity. The operation also discovered over 300 cyber impersonation fraud schemes meant to target citizens in Singapore and have since analyzed over 150 bank accounts to identify leads on the money trail.
Scams aren’t new, but as the world becomes more digital, more fraudsters are looking to trick users by putting fake customer service phone numbers online. When a customer searches for a service’s contact information, they might come across a bogus phone number instead. From there, the cybercriminals try to charge them for customer service or get them to sign up for services they don’t need.
In a YouTube video, Microsoft Security’s Doug Thomas said Microsoft and other reputable tech companies will never contact you by phone call, email, or text to make you aware of a problem with your device. Thomas said pop-up messages from reliable companies won’t include a phone number that it asks you to call to get help.
If you have questions for a company or need to make changes to a subscription, make sure you’re getting the information directly from the company’s website. This might seem like a given, but phony websites can look pretty real. Instead of Googling how to cancel the subscription, visit the provider’s website and search for its FAQ. This also goes for finding a company’s customer service number.
If you think you’ve been targeted by a scam, you can report it to the FCC or file an informal complaint. You can also report suspicious communications to Amazon.