Last week, security researcher Brian Krebs published his review of a Russian dating scam package that contains everything fraudsters need to execute an online dating scam.
According to Krebs, the package, which was intercepted by security expert Alex Holden, consisted of dating scam instructions, template emails, pictures, videos and love letters, which can be purchased by fraudsters to help scam their targets.
During the investigation, Krebs uncovered the details of, and offer to use, cybercriminal call centres used by online dating scammers to overcome the obstacle of having telephone conversations with their victims.
He revealed that the call centres hire both male and female con artists who can speak various languages, and charge scammers $10 for each phone call made, which can only be paid by Bitcoin.
Following this discovery, Krebs has today published another article, this time taking a more in-depth look inside these call centres, which allow “scammers to outsource those calls to multi-lingual men and women who can be hired to close the deal.”
As he says, these call centres have been set up to solve the “phone-based challenge” of many scams, which require the fraudsters to “demonstrate mastery of a language they don’t speak fluently”.
Krebs’ latest post focuses on the Web-based call services available to dating scammers.
He talks about one of the oldest centres, CallMeBaby, which specialises in helping criminals complete dating scams.
As Krebs says, CallMeBaby charges $10 for every English call and $12 for calls in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish.
The former Washington Post reporter also outlines the advertising strategies used by the underground call centres, saying that many rely on “catchy advertisements and graphic designs” to attract new customers, along with detailing how voice biometric technology could help stop such scammer centres.
Read the full post here.