Lens on fake call centres in Salt Lake, New Town

Kolkata: A national body of IT and ITES has written to the state IT secretary about dud scamming centres in Salt Lake and New Town. Another body of Sector V’s IT firms is also planning to hold awareness camps with young employees while its members are working with Bidhannagar Police and Kolkata Police to identify fake call centres after US-based YouTuber Mark Rober exposed three such centres in Sector V and New Town.
Bidhannagar Police sealed one of the call centres on Wednesday and arrested its 15 officials. Cops are also verifying the documents of two other call centres shown in the video. “We have already raised the issue before the state IT secretary and multiple other departments, including Lalbazar and Bidhannagar cyber cell. We have always been vigilant while offering NASSCOM membership to companies but we are alarmed by the surge in the number of fake call centres in the city and other parts of the country. We need to be more vigilant about new registrations,” said a senior official of NASSCOM.
One of the three fake call centres shown in the video was MET Technologies, which was raided by Bidhannagar Police last Wednesday and sealed. MET Technologies’ website mentions it as a NASSCOM member. “Fraudulent companies often escape our filtering process. But the moment we realise they are involved in illegal activities, their membership gets cancelled,” said the official.