[Scammer Interview] The FEMA Scam Guy

What name should we call you?

Steve Walker

What country do you live in?

India

What kind of identity theft do you do?  Credit card?  Other?

bank transfer.

How did you get into this business?

There are lot of small companies existing in India and still operating all across in India in the name of selling and giving services to the people of United States,UK and Australia.These are the three major countries scammed for more than 10 years now.. I worked for one company as call center executive, and came to know about these kinds of scams taking place in UK, US and  Australia.

Walk us through the entire process, how you get the information, what you do with it, and how you make money.

I have been calling people for different kind of Government Grants the latest is Tornadoes hit US .

Which means it is an aid that is given to the citizens of united States who are in need and in destitute. I call up people there, we pitch them saying that the government is funding them grants and you are the lucky person from your city to be chosen. We have person in America who helps us make the transaction. We collect routing no. and account no. This is direct debit transaction. We record the voice authorization of customer to take $299 for processing the Grants to their account no. which they have provided to us.

These kind of transaction is about 40 percent authorized and 60 percent decline due to insufficient fund or the person comes to know about the scam. Its easy to take the details out as we have got rebuttals ,We ask which bank they dealing with and then read out the first 3 digit of there routing no. and tell them that we know there account details and due to security reason you need to confirm the details and the customer reads the entire details to us and we eventually make a deal.

Then that account number is passed on to the person in US to  authorized to check whether the account has enough funds to take out. Then we take out the money internally without letting the customer know about that particular procedure as how they go about it.

How many other people do you know that are doing this or something similar?

I know about more than 200 people doing this, but they are just the employee of the company. Some are my friends, acquaintances, neighbor or colleuges. Among these 200 people there are few people who are the owner of the companies who actually operates everything.

 Do you think this is widespread?  Are there a lot of people doing this same scam?

Yes certainly. Huge number of people are doing these scams and in a big strength.

What websites do you read to find information on how to scam credit cards, trade personal info, or talk to other scammers?

We do not read any information from any website. The campaigns that we work for has certain requirements and criteria, those benchmark related to those are set. We just need to follow those.

How do you communicate with other scammers anonymously?

We are all from one office or are friends working in different offices.

Do you ever feel guilty that you are ripping people off?

I do feel guilty when I come across people who have just come from the hospital or waiting for some grants from the government for their living. But its again my bread and butter and my family at the end. If I don’t do that I do not earn my living for the day.

How does your family, community or friends view your activities?  Are they generally accepting or do they think of you as a criminal?

Most of our family is not aware of what we do. As they thing we do telemarketing and selling things over the phone.

Have you ever been caught or arrested?

NO I am never caught or arrested because the companies shows to the government that it is company selling their services to the people around the world. They do not usually tell what they exactly do.

How did you get caught?

Never was I caught. It is the responsibility of the company to look after the security measure.

Do you feel like the authorities are doing something to stop this? 

Yes, when the authorities come to know about the scam they raid offices and catch people and put them behind the bars. And the process is shut down.

 What authorities or governments entities are working to prevent this?

Cyber crime police authority of the state.

How has the business changed over the last 5 years, are security measures better now than before?

Yes, certainly the business has changed a lot over the last 5 years, as the people have become more aware of the scams  happening all over the place. They understand them more easily now. The security measures are better now. It is difficult to take out money from the bank.

What advice would you give our readers to avoid getting their information stolen?

I would like to tell them, please protect your bank details and your credit card details. Do not share the details with anybody. Give your bank standing instructions that whenever a transaction is taken place let yourself know first before any activities is carried out by the bank

If someone did get their information stolen, what advice would you give them?

Call your bank to stop the transaction.

Is there a way to tell if your information has been stolen but not used yet?

No it’s not possible.

What precautions do you take to make sure that you yourself are not scammed?

We do not share our credit card or bank details with anybody else. We try and keep changing our passwords every fortnight.

What do you spend the money on?

We spend the money on our day to day expense.

How much money do you make a year doing this?

Depends on how many customer I get about $10000 to $20000.

Do you live a luxurious life?  Do you have a nice home and car?

Not really! I do not have a good house nor do I have a car. Its the owner of the company who makes the most out of it. we are just working for a salary for our day to day living.

Are you married, wife, kids?

Yes,yes

Anything else you would like to tell us?

I personally do not like what I do but this is the only industry that is providing a good salary which is at least enough for a good living.