# What's the point (with insulting Indian phone calls)? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 11, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927 "2019-07-11T21:23:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/21 "2019-07-11T22:17:17Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > All the calls I have received from India in the last 5 years are. Just in case you aren’t aware of this, India is a hotbed of phone fraud. It’s not racial prejudice, just a fact. Ask Jim Browning where the call centers are and how many millions they make each month from victims. > > Hey, folks, discussion about India or Indians is derailing the thread. Why would anyone want to spend time insulting potential customers, especially if it become obvious that the call recipient isn’t going to fall for your scam? You’re the one derailing your own thread by casually extrapolating the behavior of a small number of fraudsters to 1.6 billion people. That’s the very definition of irrational racial prejudice. Even if 100% of phone scammers that you encounter are Indian, are you really too stupid to distinguish between the two conclusions “all phone scammers are Indian” and “all Indians are phone scammers”? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/22 "2019-07-11T22:21:53Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > You may be right. But I return to the OP: since these scammers are in it for the money, why don’t they cut their losses when it is obvious that they won’t earn anything? Do they think they will grind me down and I will give up my credit card number? Are they getting pleasure from thinking they are offending me? If so, then they are stupider than I thought. The next time you’re being cursed out by one of them, you should offer some tips on how to improve efficiency. I’m sure it will be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/23 "2019-07-11T22:26:40Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Why would anyone want to spend time insulting potential customers, especially if it become obvious that the call recipient isn’t going to fall for your scam? I have never heard of this phenomenon before and find it absolutely baffling. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about modern capitalism, it is that sometimes profit can be made from the most gobsmackingly bizarre behavior. So is it possible that this invective is a sort of last-resort sales pitch that scammers have found to be effective on some people who are about to turn them down, but capitulate out of fright when the aggressive obscenities make them feel threatened? I have a hard time understanding how this could be effective, but there are a hell of a lot of apparently very effective ways to sell goods and services that I have a hard time understanding. Oh, and while we’re in the Pit, fuck bigotry and prejudice against Indians or any other national/ethnic group, and also fuck trying to blame it on the tiny percentage of Indians who make aggressively nasty scam phone calls. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/24 "2019-07-11T22:53:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > So is it possible that this invective is a sort of last-resort sales pitch that scammers have found to be effective on some people who are about to turn them down, but capitulate out of fright when the aggressive obscenities make them feel threatened? No, it isn’t. These guys are just taking out their frustrations about having such a shitty job. I’m just surprised the OP has gotten several such calls. I’ve taken quite a few scam calls and only had one that became abusive. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/25 "2019-07-11T22:57:09Z")
It’s unfortunate that you derailed your own thread with a little casual racism thrown in at the end. But I’ve said my piece on that, so as for the actual question: > [@Musicat](#): > > since these scammers are in it for the money, why don’t they cut their losses when it is obvious that they won’t earn anything? Do they think they will grind me down and I will give up my credit card number? Are they getting pleasure from thinking they are offending me? If so, then they are stupider than I thought. These aren’t high-level criminal masterminds you’re talking to. They’re the low-level grunts getting paid peanuts to make calls for someone else. They don’t give a shit if they take an extra 30 seconds to hurl some profanities your way. I’m sure they have no illusions that you will cower and offer up a credit card, they’re just blowing off steam and, in their mind, making fun of the asshole American. Even if you don’t give them the desired reaction (offense or shock), they probably get it from many others. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/26 "2019-07-11T23:03:03Z")
YouTube has a bunch of “scambaiting” videos and often when the scammer realizes that his time is being wasted he launches into a tirade of obscenities and name calling, so the op is not imagining this. Why do they do this? Keep in mind that these are nasty self-centered criminals who prey on elderly people, so we shouldn’t be surprised that they sometimes act in a mean and irrational manner. And I agree with others that the op is unfairly trashing an entire country because of the actions of a very few people. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/27 "2019-07-12T00:11:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I have never heard of such calls. > > Given the OP’s last statement, I am guessing that he is being pranked by people that know him. I have gotten calls from obviously South Asian scam callers. When I’ve responded with something like “Are you kidding me?” or something like that – not using obscene or abusive language – I’ve gotten responses like the ones described in the OP. More than once. It’s definitely weird. It may be that the fact that the scammers know they’re in a different country, far, far away, is a disinhibiting factor. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/28 "2019-07-12T00:26:44Z")
Why on earth are you people having conversations with these callers? I don’t answer my phone if it’s an number not in my contacts, and when they leave me messages I delete them without listening and block that number. Life is too short to have my blood pressure raised when it can be avoided so easily. Reminds me of the people who complain about ads on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/29 "2019-07-12T00:35:08Z")
These callers are not worried about turning off a potential mark. I would imagine the calls are autodialed, and it’s not like they’re going to call you back later and try again. They’re just going to keep going down the autodial list and never deal with you again. They’re either crooks or desperately poor or both, and when you waste their time they vent at you. They’re not just screaming invective at you as soon as you answer, right? They realize that you’re stringing them along and get pissed before moving on to the next potential mark. This seems fairly straightforward to me. Oh, and I echo the “WTF” about the casual racism. Seriously, what the actual fuck? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/30 "2019-07-12T00:44:20Z")
I tried stringing along someone who was pretending to be a contractor for Microsoft. He claimed to be a security company who was tasked with following up on incident reports and got a notification that my computer was at risk. I’ve been waiting years to get a call like this and I was so excited! I played dumb and went along with him. (The man who called had an accent but was not Indian, to me it sounded like a Mexican accent if anything.) Eventually he asked about the keys on my keyboard and I was confused, and then I realized he was trying to figure out if I had a Mac or Windows PC. I made the mistake of saying that out loud which outed me as someone not totally computer illiterate and he hung up. D’oh! (I’ve been an IT support professional for about 20 years.) He was quite polite up until he hung up on me. I really wanted to play along for much longer too. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/31 "2019-07-12T00:51:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > But this reflects poorly on phone scammers Classic. > [@Musicat](#): > > All the calls I have received from India in the last 5 years are. Just in case you aren’t aware of this, India is a hotbed of phone fraud. It’s not racial prejudice, just a fact. Ask Jim Browning where the call centers are and how many millions they make each month from victims. > > Hey, folks, discussion about India or Indians is derailing the thread. Why would anyone want to spend time insulting potential customers, especially if it become obvious that the call recipient isn’t going to fall for your scam? I live in China and when I call a business in another country, sometimes I have to call the same number a few times before someone answers, assuming I’m a scammer. 1.386 billion people (not including us foreigners) here are not all phone scammers, nor is the phone scammer demographic a majority of the population of China, or India for that matter. Have you considered that maybe someone’s on their last day at work in some hell-hole phone scammer sweat-shop? Even if the boss is running a scam, I don’t think they’d be all that happy with their employees pissing off the marks to such an extent. But that’s just my theory. ---
**Author:** ![Shawn1767](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shawn1767](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shawn1767)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/32 "2019-07-12T01:05:20Z")
My theory is that they’ve been strung along by one of those YouTube scammer revenge people and then given a call-back number that accidentally was yours. So, the YouTube revenge person keeps the scammer on the phone for as long as possible and trolls them until the scammer realizes he’s been stung. Then the connection is lost and the scammer calls what he thinks is the revenge person and calls a random number the revenge person gave him, which is yours or anyone else’s. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/33 "2019-07-12T01:06:37Z")
Nobody calls me on my phone anymore, except recruiters, who I don’t really want to talk to anyway. Oh yeah I forgot, occasionally, like twice a year, I get calls at my work phone from India by people pretending to be our agent there. They never are though, of course. I guess they hope I am dumb enough to not realize they are not our agents and to authorize them to do some work for us?? I’m dumb but not that dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/34 "2019-07-12T01:25:07Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > No, it isn’t. These guys are just taking out their frustrations about having such a shitty job. It’s this. They’re desperate enough to feel forced into a criminal job that requires them to work in a boiler room. They’re angry so when they realize a call had gone south, they let loose. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/35 "2019-07-12T05:19:37Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > I don’t know ANYONE in India. It’s possible someone in that country has decided to pursue a useless personal vendetta, but why? Now we’re back to the OP. With iiandyiiii and others reporting the same thing, I will accept your story. However, unless you have extensive experience speaking with folks from the sub-continent, I could easily picture local friends taking on “Indian” accents and running this as a joke. The whole point of speculating a prank would be that it was not Indians who performed it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/36 "2019-07-12T06:28:03Z")
My key takeaway is that **Musicat** was _already_ prejudiced against Indians before getting these abusive calls. So karma is real! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/37 "2019-07-12T06:38:21Z")
If you are aware of your own prejudice, then you should be trying to fight it, not justify it. Bigotry is very often about extrapolating one’s experiences with a small few to everyone. Like when my grandpa hated Mexicans because of some Mexican bullies (with guns) back when he lived in Arizona. But he worked on it, and by the end of his life had several Mexican friends. (It started breaking because he loves Mexican food a lot, and went to Mexican restaurants a lot, getting to know the staff and such.) ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/38 "2019-07-12T09:31:08Z")
So the secret to harmony and world peace lies within fajitas? And maybe margaritas? I can get behind that theory. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/39 "2019-07-12T10:52:42Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > … > But some callers delight in throwing out offending language, like “Do you want to suck my dick?” “You can eat my shit!” and “I am fucking your mother, asshole!” and it goes downhill from there – long, long after it is obvious that this call will not generate any revenue. > … This sounds like it is coming from people who know you. I, 4 1, have never received a call like this. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927/40 "2019-07-12T10:55:42Z")
This isn’t the first time I’m hearing about this kind of thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-with-insulting-indian-phone-calls/836927.md?page=3)