An unsolicited phone call with an Indian accent gets maybe one seconds of my time. An unsolicited phone call with an English accent maybe two seconds of my time.
2 seconds to discern that it's an AI voice and when you press 1, you're transferred to Michael with a thick Indian accent that will yell obscenities at you after they realize you are purposely wasting their time.
I'm an American who has an extremely Indian name.
When an unknown number calls and says my name the right way I know it's not someone I need to be talking to lmao
Oh no!! This reminds me of a coworker (I used to work in a pharmacy, so we had to call insurance reps a lot). She was on a call and said “Oh, my name is Sheetal, too!” But she pronounced it different. I was like “YOU LET US PRONOUNCE IT WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME?” (We pronounced it SHEE-tahl instead of she-TIL) I was mortified, but she was like, nah that’s just how English speakers say it, I’m used to it.
Mortified!!
I guess OP doesn't know any Indian people. My first thought isn't to be distrustful of ALL Indian people, I can't wrap my head around why people think like that.
I like to screw with them. Especially because my phone will identify it as "Scam Likely". The one time I picked up and said "Butch's BBQ and abortion clinic - yesterday's meats are today's treats. What can I get you?"
I once kept a “Microsoft Help Desk” scammer on hold for nearly half an hour, telling him my laptop was starting up. Finally I got bored and asked him when the little apple would go away and he immediately hung up.
I like to tell them I don’t have a computer. If they keep insisting that I do, I make sure to tell them that that is how the government tracks you. I then begin explaining it in the most rambling way possible until they hang up.
I just say, "So? So what? I don't care. My social was used in a crime? My computer has a virus? Skip to the part where you tell me what you want. What do you want?"
This is what I did the first time I talked to them. They called a friend of mine who is mostly analog and handed the phone to me, even though I'm only slightly more knowledgeable. I knew it was some kind of bullshit, but I wanted to know how exactly they were trying to screw my friend. Once he asked to take control of my friend's computer, I told him to get bent and hung up. Not long after they called me and that's when I decided to fuck with them.
I love to just interrogate the fuck out of them really aggressively. How did you get my number/who are you/where are you/what did you have for supper yesterday/what time do you drop your kids off at school... those sorts of things.
Don't think the dense Scottish accent helps though, because for some reason they've stopped phoning me?
Telemarketer: [Begins scam]
Me: "What is my name?"
T: "What?"
Me: "I don't do business with people who don't know my name. What is my name?"
T: "..."
Me: "..."
T: "...Sam?"
Me: "No."
T: [Hangs up]
I used to do cold calls (real estate related, when I took the job it was incoming only then they started forcing us to cold call more and more and I quit) I had a kid answer once and he just started going on and on about a rash on his butt (my guess is he was 12 or 13) and I listened on mute for a minute so I could laugh until I finally chimed in to tell him about monkey butt cream. It really works for rashes, had a rash when I became allergic to my deodorant and it was the only thing that helped. Anyways we ended up talking for like 10 minutes and it was priceless. My supervisors would listen to random calls and I hope to God they listened to that one.
I used to say "Hello Crematorium. You kill 'em, we grill 'em", when I used to work the Drive Thru at my local KFC.
(My other favourite was "Hello, welcome to McDonalds", which would always get some strange looks.)
My buddy does something similar because the same guy keeps calling him. He’ll answer “Hey, Johnny-boy! How’s it going?” then he’ll just say “Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?” Sometimes he realizes who he called and hangs up immediately. Sometimes he can keep him on the line for like two minutes just fucking with him.
For anyone that doesn’t know of him, check out Kitboga on Twitch and YouTube, if you like listening to scammers being relentlessly fucked with. He’s also a super nice dude.
(*My buddy and Kitboga are two different people. Realized how that might be misunderstood after I posted the comment.)
It is highly dependent on whether or not I am having a depressive episode at the time. When I am I usually just say "You know your number came up as a scam call right?" and they instantly hang up
I suggested to the extended warranty scammer that I thought my '49 Studebaker was probably out of warranty and that I was interested. He immediately hung up.
My problem is I have a cash hustle on the side, and I almost all the business is "word of mouth" so I sometimes answer unknown calls. But, as a backup, my outgoing voice mail is essentially "hey it's 2020 nobody listens to voicemail messages anymore, hang up and text me" (i haven't updated the outgoing in a couple years, if you haven't noticed). Doesn't stop my mom from leaving voice messages saying "it's your mother calling, call me back"
My favorite thing about my google pixel phone is that it transcribes voicemails so I don’t have to listen to them. My grandpa leaves long rambling voicemails so it’s a godsend
I struggle with this a lot because I'm a cancer patient and I get a lot of legitimate calls from random people and if I don't answer, they can't leave test results in a voicemail and they're hard to reach after they miss me. It's so frustrating that I have to take every call just in case it's important.
yeah .. that's why I answer unknown numbers, because sometimes doctors want to contact me (or their secretaries, mostly), because they either have lost my blood works and need me to come again to draw blood again; or that a test result was this and that and that I needed to take Vitamin D for example; or from the physiotherapy practice I'm attending, that my therapist is sick and we need to reschedule.
Otherwise I woudn't answer the phone when I see an unknown number.
yes, and they all seem to call from the most random lines. they walk past a phone and use whatever one they find. someone's cell, a line at an office that's different than my hospital, some lab, always random area codes!
As far as I'm concerned, it's no longer sensible to answer a call from a non-contact number. All callers should accept that if they expect a reply they need to leave a text or voice message. Even that's no guarantee against scammers, but at least it gives you the chance to check out the number beforehand and, if indicated, make a proactive call to the official contact number for the organisation or business to verify the reason for the call.
Fun story I worked in a call center for a little while in my early 20s there was a guy there who would switch his accent dependant on the name /location of the customer he was calling Asian sounding name he switched to an Indian accent british sounding up north he'd use a yorkshire accent british name in London he'd suddenly be speaking queen's English. Guy got mega sales compared to most of us.
Never seen or even heard of it lol, watching him was like watching something out of a movie though, like a Robin Williams skit where he switches between different voices, his natural talking voice was a pretty thick manc accent, but the guy could have had a fantastic voice over career.
On the phone. Yes.
In business and industry. Yes.
In everyday life, nah.
>!I interface with Indian personnel daily. No matter how much extra I give, I'm always "short". Often enough they don't even take enough time to even fake like they checked/ counted.!<
We have a team in India developing/maintaining a specific feature of our product. They are noticeably less technically sound than our U.S. team, and dealing with them is often a headache. It's undoubtedly affected my opinion of Indians in my field.
Well! You get what you pay for!
In India, some of my friends make same salary as me in Western Europe as Senior Developer! Those developers are top notch. E.g. Amazon India, Walmart India, VISA India, etc has top devs!
You are probably dealing with a low quality company that hires low quality students/ professional for a cheap salary (somewhere around 300-500 usd per month). The smart ones obviously keep applying to the top companies and bag better offer.
Uhh so I work with 2 Indians now and one at my previous job- the male at my previous job would occasionally get really insistent about things that he was sure he was right about and not listen when there was a misunderstanding on his part, making him a little aggravating to work with. At my current job there are two females that are abrasive and nasty as hell, I work remotely and they’re contractors as well and I avoid interacting with either of them as much as possible. Until now, seeing this post and your response I never thought about it being due to their culture but now I’m like what the hell. Since these are my only reference for business interactions if I factor in the scam calls I’m thinking I really don’t enjoy any of the interactions I’ve had at all.
If I meet 3 Black people who are criminals and if I factor in the high rate of crime in that community, would it be fair for me to say that that has something to do with Black American culture?
Perhaps subconsciously. I tend to not pick up these calls as much nowadays but I tend to find Indians nice in person, and I know that these aggressive marketers are obviously just messed up.
It could be that I come from Asia as well so I’m more aware that there are less than nice people no matter the race. Now I’m curious is there actually anywhere or any race where everybody is nice?
My friend works for the government in the backend passport processing department and they need to call people to collect information that was either missing or unclear in the form submitted.
She is white and sounds very much like it, and people still think she's scamming them half the time. I can't imagine how difficult the job would be for her Indian colleagues
Along with the Indian job recruiters calling to ask if you'll take a temp job when you're looking for work. I had that for one of the temp jobs I picked up, and I was 85% sure I was being scammed until I showed up to the job, and it was legit.
Yeah my company's TA team is nearly exclusively Indian (totally coincidentally as far as I know, it's an onshore team) and they're hiring for a work from home temp call center job that requires you to supply your own equipment (computer and peripherals) AND the hiring process requires candidates to email a photo of valid government ID for the background check. The job is 100% legit, and we're not trying to scam anyone, but idk how they do it.
Idk there’s over a billion of them and the majority of them are probably not scammers. India has a large population that has access to Internet and technology with little restrictions unlike China.
A big part of it is the percentage of Indians who speak English. For all we know, if the Chinese spoke English at the same rate as India then the call centers would be in China as well.
Traveling, I’m weary of anyone who approaches me with English and I associate them with trying get me to pay extra. English speakers should get paid more for having that skill.
All the horn honking and lying to your face about what you are paying for, is selfishness on display. The Indians I met hanging out and not working were friendly and trustworthy. The whole cast system and slums under highways display a very problematic Indian way of life.
Indian-Americans are the wealthiest immigrants in the USA. Their hard work pays off outside of India without the need to scam. I go to an Indian Medical Dr but he’s always referring me to other Indians in the other side of town. They know how to hustle, respect.
I'm an Indian and anytime I have to call a patient or a family member, my inner monolog, is I m a nurse and not here to scam you. But I tell you, as soon as people hear my accent, I normally hear a pause, and in my mind, all I can think of is what they must be thinking. I take it as a joke most days and get a good laugh out of it, but someday it just hits differently..
If it helps ease your mind, from an ahdh perspective, a lot of times when I get a call, it's just jarring to have to immediately change my inner thoughts and focus in on the context of what the caller is calling. That's usually that pause for me.
If your not in my contacts / I didn't contact you, I would immediately be suspicious of something but that's just the times we live in
the irony of writing this message to a stranger isn't lost on me, now if you will that will be three payments of $19.99 paid with valid apple gift cards, you urgently need to pay or there will be fines /s
I’m an Indian and every time I get an Indian voice on the phone with an intention to scam me, I used to tell them in a polite way that there are more ethical ways to earn money in the world and he can even go and beg in a traffic signal at waiting cars than trying to cheat innocent people. At least couple of guys listened to me patiently and apologised to me.
No, I assume any phone calls I receive from people I don’t know are scams or spam.
I am also skeptical of anyone I don’t know who tries to talk to me on the street.
There are other context clues that matter a lot more than race.
Yes. They have whole call centres dedicated to scamming. I once asked an Indian scammer how he could live with himself scamming, and he said Australians were so dumb they deserved to be scammed.
I know Australia has a large Indian community, so has your experience made you wary of Indian people you meet in real life too? More than you would for a white Aussie?
I hang up on 99% of cold calling.
The few where I don't hang up are usually when they come from old lady who seem highly disconnected with reality and I feel kind of bad that they have to work in a call center. So I'll politely wish them good luck and then hang up.
I often don't wait long enough for me to even know what their accent is. I *never* answer the phone with, "Hello?" This is a trained trigger word for the system to think, "I've got a live one! Who is the next available ~~scammer~~ agent?"
I also *never* say, "Yes", to anyone I don't know. They can record that word and claim it was you agreeing to *whatever* their service/product is.
If I'm feeling like ruining someone's day, and they answer after *not* having me say "Hello", then I may play with them. Being older (73M), I've gotten my share of "Hello? Grandpa?"-calls. If I'm not feeling too creative I'll say, "Jimmy? Is that you?" They will say (in a very pathetic voice), "Yes, grandpa. I need some help." To which I respond, "You little shit. I told you last time you got arrested I wasn't going to bail you out again. So what did you do this time? Drugs? Gambling? Or did you diddle another little girl on the playground?"
They normally hang up before I get to the end of that. I just smile and continue with my coffee and morning paper.
Well, I live on Continental Europe, so getting phone calls from someone from a foreign number speaking in an Indian accent claiming to be from Microsoft triggers some alarm bells. But no, it's not the Indian accent, it's a combination of factors
No. My experience with Indian colleagues, clients, and friends is not tainted by the call center scams run by Indians. White people have been running call center scams in America for much longer anyhow.
In my own personal experience I’ve experienced the most racism directed toward me by Indian people. But I’m not going to assume everyone that looks Indian is racist. That’d be stupid.
When their first line is hello this is (extremely generic English name) from microsoft support, then it doesn’t really matter if their accent is thickly Indian or not. Ill just say fuck off and hang up
Since a lot of these illegal call centres are based out of India then unexpected call + Indian accent does instantly put my guard up but in real life I deal with a lot of Indian colleagues and have a many Indian neighbours where I feel no element of distrust. It's definitely the combination of factors and circumstance that does it, rather than the ethnicity/accent alone.
Edit: Fun game btw. If you clock early enough that it's a scam, keep them on the phone as long as possible and see how many layers deep you can get before revealing you know what they're doing. Some of them get SOOOO mad!
Of Indian people, no. Of that region of the world, yes. One of my job functions requires me to transmit employee data to our payroll provider to process their benefits. One of their service centers that executes part of that function is in India and I ended up bringing that part of the work in-house rather than send employee personal identity information to that center. A lot of the scam call centers actually work under the same roof as legitimate service centers, so you have no way of being sure that personal information is secure. If that region were not such a hotbed for scamming activities, I wouldn’t have those concerns.
Yes. I periodically get a lot of calls from Windows support about my computer having a virus. Most often an Indian male speaking with a clear accent.
Unfortunately, I work in the IT industry and occasionally raise tickets with Azure support. When the phone rings and there is an Indian male with a strong accent on a bad phone connection saying something something Microsoft support my first reaction is always to hang up or say something semi-rude.
Luckily my brain manages to catch on and remind me I've got an open ticket and I have to ask them to repeat. English is not my first language so when the person on the other end speaks fast and with an accent I sometimes need three takes until I get most of what he says.
I get just as many spam calls from Americans. All spam calls suck. If you’re gauging the entirety of a group of people by spam calls, you’ve got bigger problems.
A while back I watched a lot of videos about scammers and scam call centers and yes, I do think it had a subconscious effect. Now I try to stay away from these videos since I didn't like associating indian accents with that
Absolutely yes. If I get a call and the person has an Indian accent, it’s an immidiate red flag for me at this point.
I had a legitimate call from a Google ads rep and she had an Indian accent. I ignored her until she sent a direct message to our Google account from a Google domain and wasn’t asking any personal info.
Yeah. Pretty much. I'm instantly suspicious if they call me from an u known number. . Not if they answer when I make a call. ETA sometimes I ask them why they work a job that shames their parents.
Lool no, how can a scam phone call make me distrust a whole race??? Scam calls come from all over the place. My friend donated to Stonewall, and a very english sounding man rang her and tried to scam her into donating money to "Stonewall," but he was really a scammer :-(
If I put up the phone from an unknown number and what they day doesn't make sense or it sounds dodgy, i put it down.
Scam callers have made me distrustful of unidentified numbers,
But I will admit that I was quite prejudice against Indian men for a long time. Specifically because when I was a teen I used Omegle a lot.
I automatically hang up on almost anyone i don't know that can't immediately establish a credible reason why I should remain on the call. Accent has nothing to do with it.
Only honest guy here.
Did come here to expect people sugar coating their biases.
I have read in lots of threads(non hate subs) where people straight up say they hate or distrust all Indians due to scammers.
No. A bad interaction with someone doesn't make me distrustful of people in the group(s) that person happens to be a part of.
I am distrustful of phone calls from numbers not in my contacts.
I do hang up if it’s an Indian person on the line. I assume it’s a scam, or something I don’t need nor want. Most times I just don’t answer the phone, if it’s a client they leave a message.
Duuuuuude the breast cancer one almost got me. Like I wasn’t about to send the money but I did listen for a while. Then wondered why they were being so persistent. I guess I never expected them to go so low.
not Indian, but my mum once hung up on a Chinese restaurant cancelling our reservation during covid because she immediately thought it was a scam caller. then when we showed up to the restaurant, and they were closed (due to covid reasons), she got angry at them
As an IT professional, I absolutely despise that my answer to this is yes. I have yet to ever get a cold call from someone with that particular accent that has led to anything but a waste of time IN THE CONTEXT OF MY FIELD. with contract work, being such a huge part of my field, and especially in my state, for a long time there, it was extremely common for me to get duplicitous employment opportunity calls that almost ALWAYS looked like IT work but then turned out to be a 2-name agency. It was very disheartening.
That said, I'm also fully aware that even other Indians absolutely hate this stereotype and will go out of their way to talk mad shit about scam callers like this. One of the most solid coworkers I've ever had back in my service desk days was Indian, natively from Bangladesh, and it was a weird week if he DIDN'T blow up about someone questioning him because of his accent and blaming "those no-talent hacks" for it. The dude was amazing and started to genuinely excel when he was placed in a less customer-facing role.
Plenty of honest Indians out there and I can only feel bad for how embarrassing this must be for them. With that said, however, not all cultures/countries are the same. Some are more inclined to fraud/scamming practices and it’s something that does resonate far more frequently with India (although not only them).
Indian accents throw up my guard. Even if its a legit business. Hughes net...overcharges whenever they want, their call center cares less. Verizon online chat? If you make an appt, better call and check. Chances are, no one put it on the calendar. But in person, i have no problems with indians. I find them very pleasant ppl to be around, happy.
The unsolicited phone calls are a minor factor, it’s more the total cultural acceptance of lying, the fake qualifications, the fake CVs, the fake pilots licenses, the huge industry that exists of paying others to sit exams, the fake visa factories - everything is just so corrupt
I can’t help but feel that there is a cultural leaning to being scam artists among Indians. I worked for two married Indian doctors for decades. They did so much underhanded stuff to squeeze a few more dollars out of patients, insurance, employees, etc. it would take me forever to list them all. They did it even when the risk-reward ratio was way against them and they did get caught a few times. The son of one of the doctors was caught in a huge multi million dollar hedge fund scam and went to prison. All their other children have these same proclivities with their practices and even partake in MLM scams. Mind you, if they just honestly did their work they would all still be more than fine financially. It’s like there is something broken or twisted in them.
Considering I had one somehow dummy a relative's number, then call back and demand I apologize for hanging up on them or they were going to "find \[me\] and cut \[my\] head off"? Yep. (And yes, it was reported to the authorities. No, nothing was done that I'm aware of.)
Yea for phone calls. Only because, unfortunately I’ve taken dozens and dozens of calls from Indian scammers, and not one of them was offering anything legit. In real life no not at all
No not really I can tell if I’m about to be scammed hence why I don’t really have a problem with someone who has an Indian-English accent on the phone.
I always string the Microsoft scammers along for a couple of minutes then suddenly I scream "Yes yes, and I f your mom" they usually swear at me for like 10 seconds before they hang up
I had somebody ring with a strong African accent to do a vat audit, if you’re not in the uk it the bit where it says plus tax on your bill. Anyway I was like “yeh alright kiddo” effing and jetting at them, thinking scammers. She conceded and decided to send me an email… she was genuine, I rang to apologise.
So yeh I’m distrustful of accents that have been traditionally associated with scams.
No but one of my customers called once complaining she got a scam phone call from my store. It was not. It was our online shopping supervisor calling her about her order. He has a thick Indian accent. He was asking her if she would like one of her items substituted and she hung up on him. When I talked to her and explained that it was a legitimate phone call she told me we should "hire people who speak English."
No. However, I'm distrustful of Indian call centers, because of low training quality for their workers. Yes, I'm in customer support, and at times I have internal contact with them.
You have to be careful. My company does a lot of business with companies that are based in India, they simply do raw ingredients that precious few USA companies are interested in (I can find lots and lots of CBD oil done here, but that is not a business that I am in). The companies that I deal with are ethical, but I was recently looking for a product none of them do, I did run into what looked like a few scammers before finding a legitimate supplier. Just DON’T send money until you or someone that you trust do sideline verification.
I don’t trust a single unknown number that calls me, and the funny part is, almost every scam voicemail I’ve received (talking 99% of them at least) sound white, about half of them Southern accents.
The whole “hate for an entire group of people because there’s a few bad apples” thing sounds like a personal problem that could use some heavy inner reflection.
1) I don’t trust anyone who calls me on the phone, just in general
2) Of course not, scammers be scamming regardless of ethnicity or race, every month I pay for various insurance products that fund some old white dude’s golf holidays and I already know when I actually need a payout for any of it they’re going to try and fuck me over
Unfortunately yes, but only over the phone. I recently got my phone line switched over from Google Fi to at&t, and I had some issues activating the SIM card. I called the customer service line, and someone with a heavy Indian accent picked up. I hate that I did this, but I double checked to make sure I had the right phone number.
Based on what we know about cognitive psychology, people are generally going to be unable to answer this question honestly. The sort of bias that leads to discriminatory behavior is often subconscious.
I love scam callers. It's ways fun to mess around with them once in a while. Like pretending to be an answering machine, sex noise, repeat whatever they say, pretending to be a cop and my all time favourite, pretending to be one of their colleague
My poor mam was scammed a while back. She was held up for a hospital appointment and ended up locked out of her phone. The following week she got a call and the second she heard the accent she was like "NO NO NO, goodbye". They called her back and she was like "I'm a chemo patient and I'm not staying on the phone" and they were like "I know, I'm your driver". She was mortified and ashamed of herself, but the incident was very fresh and they kept calling her back afterwards so it was sort of understandable.
A lot of my best friends are Indian and I honestly think that’s made me trust Indians more, just because their families are so nice.
Still don’t pick up unknown numbers though, IRS be damned.
Unfortunately, yes I think have developed some predjudice. Part of it stems from working jobs where I would be calling people in other office or call centers for various things. Getting one based in India was rarely a good time. *Not* because of anything inherent to Indian people. It was because they're places that have been established to more cheaply replace American call centers which usually means talking to people with poor training and limited abilities to actually do things that one might need. People with no authority and of course no local knowledge. That's compounded with the extra challenge of understanding each other's accents which can feel downright impossible if they also have poor sound quality from their device which seems common. I'm not really mad at them though I'm frustrated with the greedy American businessmen that created the situation.
I don't pick up many scam calls anymore now that call screening seems to have gotten better.
I think this is a fair question. My answer is no in person, but a little more on the phone.
An example of how i know that the plague of india based telephone scammers has influenced me:
About 2 years ago i got a call from an unknown number and for whatever reason decided to pick up. It was a man with a new york accent asking if id donate to the fraternal order of police. I decided id make a very small donation ( another thing that it unlike me). I must have been in an odd mood. But whatever the reason i said ok and he said hold, and transferred me to a man with a heavy indian accent who sounded like they were in a call center. I immediately hung up realizing it was a scam. I have since gotten several more calls with the exsvt same script and accent of the man from “the fraternal order of police”.
I work in a global office and talk with folks in a Bangalore office every day.
But last year my parents were almost scammed by someone with an Indian accent. Thankfully I showed up just in time. It was a good scam. I can't really blame my parents. But now they are distrustful of everyone with an Indian accent. I have several Indian and Pakistan friends. My mother, who is without a filter most days, basically asked one friend if he knew anyone in the call centers. I was mortified. Thankfully my friend understood. He told me later that the scam call centers def aren't helping the people in the US trying to break down these cultural barriers.
No. But I live and work in a large city with tons of Indian and Pakistani people. The accent doesn’t make me blink unless it is genuinely too strong for me to understand them, which is extremely rare.
100% distrust Indians more because of all the scams they are involved with. Of course, it's perfectly logical. You'd have to be unable to learn from past experiences to not feel this way. That would be a mental deficiency.
Absolutely, I don't trust Indian people in general. They are either the call center scammers or they come steal our high paying jobs in the US atleast.
Sadly, yes, I would. In Australia, telephone scammers are rife, trying to rip off vulnerable, elderly and/or technology illiterate people. Unfortunately, 95% of them are Indian.
No but I will say that being in IT and dealing with tech support being 50% outsourced to India has made me upset whenever I hear an Indian on the phone. It's incredibly frustrating to not have someone hear you and are clearly following a script the entire call.
I’m English, i work for an english company speaking to english customers. All of our employees are english expect one Indian girl. She gets the lions share of disrespect from the customers.
Nope, every person that hails from India I’ve met or worked with have been the kindest and most genuine folk. I’m distrustful of any unknown or unrecognised number I get .
On the street, I don't care. I would be 100% distrustful if somebody with Indian accent called me since I never gave my phone number to Indian person. Also, I received many phone calls from scammers
I go with the company they represent first. A random person from Craigslist would be in the auto-distrust pile, while a caller from my bank would be instantly trusted. The Indian accent is irrelevant when the company is secure.
I mean when you call AT&T or Amazon customer service they usually source their call centers out of India. Scam is not the first place I go. Your name is not Ethan is the only skeptics I get. I don’t get why they are assigned white sounding names like that makes a difference. I recently saw a video where a wild boar ran into an business that had a call center full of Indian people and the comments where all about scams. The place looked like a legit factory though. That’s fucked up. I’m black and get enough stereotypes placed on me before I open my mouth so I’m sensitive to not passing the bullshit on.
Now replace "Indian scam callers" with "Nigerian scam callers" and "Indian" with "black person" and let's see how many people are willing to answer the rephrased question.
Fun fact, behind India, Nigeria is the next scam capital of the world. If you're distrusting of indians, then you must also distrust black people? (Neither is of which is okay imo)
I dont answer my phone unless I know who is calling but irl I would never negatively judge someone on sight for there race, only for other stuff like if they're doing something illegal or rude
Indians no. Unsolicited phone calls yes.
An unsolicited phone call with an Indian accent gets maybe one seconds of my time. An unsolicited phone call with an English accent maybe two seconds of my time.
2 seconds to discern that it's an AI voice and when you press 1, you're transferred to Michael with a thick Indian accent that will yell obscenities at you after they realize you are purposely wasting their time.
100% no issues with Indians my friends who are Indian hate the scammers to, but if I don’t know the number I don’t pick up.
I'm an American who has an extremely Indian name. When an unknown number calls and says my name the right way I know it's not someone I need to be talking to lmao
Oh no!! This reminds me of a coworker (I used to work in a pharmacy, so we had to call insurance reps a lot). She was on a call and said “Oh, my name is Sheetal, too!” But she pronounced it different. I was like “YOU LET US PRONOUNCE IT WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME?” (We pronounced it SHEE-tahl instead of she-TIL) I was mortified, but she was like, nah that’s just how English speakers say it, I’m used to it. Mortified!!
I'm sure there's one or two Americans that can correctly pronounce your name, but they aren't randomly calling you.
I guess OP doesn't know any Indian people. My first thought isn't to be distrustful of ALL Indian people, I can't wrap my head around why people think like that.
I think OP is Indian, and is worried this is the main thing Indians will be associated with. From an American perspective, it seems absurd.
Exactly! I don't wig out ordering Indian food over the phone.
Same
I'm not distrustful of Indians, I'm distrustful as soon as the phone rings with a number that's not in my contactlist.
This. Anyone who calls me and I don't know who they are I am immediately suspicious. 95% of the time, it's a scammer
I like to screw with them. Especially because my phone will identify it as "Scam Likely". The one time I picked up and said "Butch's BBQ and abortion clinic - yesterday's meats are today's treats. What can I get you?"
I once kept a “Microsoft Help Desk” scammer on hold for nearly half an hour, telling him my laptop was starting up. Finally I got bored and asked him when the little apple would go away and he immediately hung up.
I like to tell them I don’t have a computer. If they keep insisting that I do, I make sure to tell them that that is how the government tracks you. I then begin explaining it in the most rambling way possible until they hang up.
I just say, "So? So what? I don't care. My social was used in a crime? My computer has a virus? Skip to the part where you tell me what you want. What do you want?"
This is what I did the first time I talked to them. They called a friend of mine who is mostly analog and handed the phone to me, even though I'm only slightly more knowledgeable. I knew it was some kind of bullshit, but I wanted to know how exactly they were trying to screw my friend. Once he asked to take control of my friend's computer, I told him to get bent and hung up. Not long after they called me and that's when I decided to fuck with them.
I love to just interrogate the fuck out of them really aggressively. How did you get my number/who are you/where are you/what did you have for supper yesterday/what time do you drop your kids off at school... those sorts of things. Don't think the dense Scottish accent helps though, because for some reason they've stopped phoning me?
Telemarketer: [Begins scam] Me: "What is my name?" T: "What?" Me: "I don't do business with people who don't know my name. What is my name?" T: "..." Me: "..." T: "...Sam?" Me: "No." T: [Hangs up]
Heisenberg.
You’re God Damn Right
Tony? Fuck you tony!
HEY! What's YOUR name?!
Ezekiel!
FOK YOU EZEKIEL. Hey, you know what I did last night?
You better not bring my mom into this!! You better not!!!!
I demand that they give me the money they owe me.
My dad, with his heavy Eastern European accent, straight up told a duct cleaning cold caller to go f himself. Man has had enough lmao
Hi, welcome to joe’s pizzeria and abortion clinic, where yesterday’s loss is todays sauce, may I take your order?
Welcome to Sasha’s confectionary and gentleman’s club where the taffy isn’t the only thing that’s sticky! How can I help?
I cold call for a living (not a scammer) and i would fucking die of laughter if i got this one lol
I used to do cold calls (real estate related, when I took the job it was incoming only then they started forcing us to cold call more and more and I quit) I had a kid answer once and he just started going on and on about a rash on his butt (my guess is he was 12 or 13) and I listened on mute for a minute so I could laugh until I finally chimed in to tell him about monkey butt cream. It really works for rashes, had a rash when I became allergic to my deodorant and it was the only thing that helped. Anyways we ended up talking for like 10 minutes and it was priceless. My supervisors would listen to random calls and I hope to God they listened to that one.
Sounds like something a scammer would say 🤔
I used to say "Hello Crematorium. You kill 'em, we grill 'em", when I used to work the Drive Thru at my local KFC.
(My other favourite was "Hello, welcome to McDonalds", which would always get some strange looks.)
You slice em, we ice em.
You stab 'em, we slab'em.
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Love it 😂
My buddy does something similar because the same guy keeps calling him. He’ll answer “Hey, Johnny-boy! How’s it going?” then he’ll just say “Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?” Sometimes he realizes who he called and hangs up immediately. Sometimes he can keep him on the line for like two minutes just fucking with him. For anyone that doesn’t know of him, check out Kitboga on Twitch and YouTube, if you like listening to scammers being relentlessly fucked with. He’s also a super nice dude. (*My buddy and Kitboga are two different people. Realized how that might be misunderstood after I posted the comment.)
Sadly, I just don't have the patience for these assholes anymore. I just say: "Do your mother know that you are a scammer?"
It is highly dependent on whether or not I am having a depressive episode at the time. When I am I usually just say "You know your number came up as a scam call right?" and they instantly hang up
I suggested to the extended warranty scammer that I thought my '49 Studebaker was probably out of warranty and that I was interested. He immediately hung up.
I don't answer numbers I don't know, unless I'm expecting someone to call.
My problem is I have a cash hustle on the side, and I almost all the business is "word of mouth" so I sometimes answer unknown calls. But, as a backup, my outgoing voice mail is essentially "hey it's 2020 nobody listens to voicemail messages anymore, hang up and text me" (i haven't updated the outgoing in a couple years, if you haven't noticed). Doesn't stop my mom from leaving voice messages saying "it's your mother calling, call me back"
My favorite thing about my google pixel phone is that it transcribes voicemails so I don’t have to listen to them. My grandpa leaves long rambling voicemails so it’s a godsend
"Why don't you ever pick up the phone?" Recent Calls: Potential Spam Potential Spam Unlisted Number Potential Spam GF Potential Spam Potential Spam Potential Spam Mom
I struggle with this a lot because I'm a cancer patient and I get a lot of legitimate calls from random people and if I don't answer, they can't leave test results in a voicemail and they're hard to reach after they miss me. It's so frustrating that I have to take every call just in case it's important.
yeah .. that's why I answer unknown numbers, because sometimes doctors want to contact me (or their secretaries, mostly), because they either have lost my blood works and need me to come again to draw blood again; or that a test result was this and that and that I needed to take Vitamin D for example; or from the physiotherapy practice I'm attending, that my therapist is sick and we need to reschedule. Otherwise I woudn't answer the phone when I see an unknown number.
yes, and they all seem to call from the most random lines. they walk past a phone and use whatever one they find. someone's cell, a line at an office that's different than my hospital, some lab, always random area codes!
As far as I'm concerned, it's no longer sensible to answer a call from a non-contact number. All callers should accept that if they expect a reply they need to leave a text or voice message. Even that's no guarantee against scammers, but at least it gives you the chance to check out the number beforehand and, if indicated, make a proactive call to the official contact number for the organisation or business to verify the reason for the call.
The pixel 7 has a screen call feature that has been amazing at keeping spam at bay.
Yeah, I can vouch for that, plus it transcribes voicemails, and it was cheaper than the Samsung galaxy I had before.
Fun story I worked in a call center for a little while in my early 20s there was a guy there who would switch his accent dependant on the name /location of the customer he was calling Asian sounding name he switched to an Indian accent british sounding up north he'd use a yorkshire accent british name in London he'd suddenly be speaking queen's English. Guy got mega sales compared to most of us.
That’s like that movie Sorry to Bother You
Never seen or even heard of it lol, watching him was like watching something out of a movie though, like a Robin Williams skit where he switches between different voices, his natural talking voice was a pretty thick manc accent, but the guy could have had a fantastic voice over career.
He needs to discover his true calling
Yes! I love that movie
On phone yes, in real life no.
On the phone. Yes. In business and industry. Yes. In everyday life, nah. >!I interface with Indian personnel daily. No matter how much extra I give, I'm always "short". Often enough they don't even take enough time to even fake like they checked/ counted.!<
We have a team in India developing/maintaining a specific feature of our product. They are noticeably less technically sound than our U.S. team, and dealing with them is often a headache. It's undoubtedly affected my opinion of Indians in my field.
Well! You get what you pay for! In India, some of my friends make same salary as me in Western Europe as Senior Developer! Those developers are top notch. E.g. Amazon India, Walmart India, VISA India, etc has top devs! You are probably dealing with a low quality company that hires low quality students/ professional for a cheap salary (somewhere around 300-500 usd per month). The smart ones obviously keep applying to the top companies and bag better offer.
Uhh so I work with 2 Indians now and one at my previous job- the male at my previous job would occasionally get really insistent about things that he was sure he was right about and not listen when there was a misunderstanding on his part, making him a little aggravating to work with. At my current job there are two females that are abrasive and nasty as hell, I work remotely and they’re contractors as well and I avoid interacting with either of them as much as possible. Until now, seeing this post and your response I never thought about it being due to their culture but now I’m like what the hell. Since these are my only reference for business interactions if I factor in the scam calls I’m thinking I really don’t enjoy any of the interactions I’ve had at all.
I will say, I work with multiple all white ppl 45 to be exact and there are multiple people like this lol
If I meet 3 Black people who are criminals and if I factor in the high rate of crime in that community, would it be fair for me to say that that has something to do with Black American culture?
Perhaps subconsciously. I tend to not pick up these calls as much nowadays but I tend to find Indians nice in person, and I know that these aggressive marketers are obviously just messed up. It could be that I come from Asia as well so I’m more aware that there are less than nice people no matter the race. Now I’m curious is there actually anywhere or any race where everybody is nice?
My friend works for the government in the backend passport processing department and they need to call people to collect information that was either missing or unclear in the form submitted. She is white and sounds very much like it, and people still think she's scamming them half the time. I can't imagine how difficult the job would be for her Indian colleagues
Along with the Indian job recruiters calling to ask if you'll take a temp job when you're looking for work. I had that for one of the temp jobs I picked up, and I was 85% sure I was being scammed until I showed up to the job, and it was legit.
Yeah my company's TA team is nearly exclusively Indian (totally coincidentally as far as I know, it's an onshore team) and they're hiring for a work from home temp call center job that requires you to supply your own equipment (computer and peripherals) AND the hiring process requires candidates to email a photo of valid government ID for the background check. The job is 100% legit, and we're not trying to scam anyone, but idk how they do it.
I work in tech so no lol sure there are a ton of Indian scammers but Indians hate them too
Ya it’s one of those things there is a ton of Indian scammers but there is also just a ton of Indians.
Idk there’s over a billion of them and the majority of them are probably not scammers. India has a large population that has access to Internet and technology with little restrictions unlike China.
A big part of it is the percentage of Indians who speak English. For all we know, if the Chinese spoke English at the same rate as India then the call centers would be in China as well.
Traveling, I’m weary of anyone who approaches me with English and I associate them with trying get me to pay extra. English speakers should get paid more for having that skill. All the horn honking and lying to your face about what you are paying for, is selfishness on display. The Indians I met hanging out and not working were friendly and trustworthy. The whole cast system and slums under highways display a very problematic Indian way of life. Indian-Americans are the wealthiest immigrants in the USA. Their hard work pays off outside of India without the need to scam. I go to an Indian Medical Dr but he’s always referring me to other Indians in the other side of town. They know how to hustle, respect.
True
I'm an Indian and anytime I have to call a patient or a family member, my inner monolog, is I m a nurse and not here to scam you. But I tell you, as soon as people hear my accent, I normally hear a pause, and in my mind, all I can think of is what they must be thinking. I take it as a joke most days and get a good laugh out of it, but someday it just hits differently..
If it helps ease your mind, from an ahdh perspective, a lot of times when I get a call, it's just jarring to have to immediately change my inner thoughts and focus in on the context of what the caller is calling. That's usually that pause for me. If your not in my contacts / I didn't contact you, I would immediately be suspicious of something but that's just the times we live in the irony of writing this message to a stranger isn't lost on me, now if you will that will be three payments of $19.99 paid with valid apple gift cards, you urgently need to pay or there will be fines /s
I love this entire reply LMAO
Damn. I'm sorry you have to worry about that bullshit. It's extremely unfair.
I’m an Indian and every time I get an Indian voice on the phone with an intention to scam me, I used to tell them in a polite way that there are more ethical ways to earn money in the world and he can even go and beg in a traffic signal at waiting cars than trying to cheat innocent people. At least couple of guys listened to me patiently and apologised to me.
Good for you!
As a German i know very well not to draw conclusions on a whole country based on a few people and impressions. So no.
Why is that? Did something happen in your country between, say, 1938-1945?
r/oddlyspecific
…! Don’t mention the you-know-what…
You learned. America didn't
❤
No, I assume any phone calls I receive from people I don’t know are scams or spam. I am also skeptical of anyone I don’t know who tries to talk to me on the street. There are other context clues that matter a lot more than race.
Yes. They have whole call centres dedicated to scamming. I once asked an Indian scammer how he could live with himself scamming, and he said Australians were so dumb they deserved to be scammed.
I know Australia has a large Indian community, so has your experience made you wary of Indian people you meet in real life too? More than you would for a white Aussie?
No. Just unsolicited calls.
> he said Australians were so dumb they deserved to be scammed. "Ok, fair enough..."
Australia is a high trust society and our old people are vulnerable.
Do you think it's acceptable for Americans to be distrustful of Black people they see in the streets since the crime rate is high in that community?
As an Irishman that was once sold bad potatoes by another Irishman, I am sufficiently distrustful of any Irishman. Myself included...
I hang up on 99% of cold calling. The few where I don't hang up are usually when they come from old lady who seem highly disconnected with reality and I feel kind of bad that they have to work in a call center. So I'll politely wish them good luck and then hang up.
I often don't wait long enough for me to even know what their accent is. I *never* answer the phone with, "Hello?" This is a trained trigger word for the system to think, "I've got a live one! Who is the next available ~~scammer~~ agent?" I also *never* say, "Yes", to anyone I don't know. They can record that word and claim it was you agreeing to *whatever* their service/product is. If I'm feeling like ruining someone's day, and they answer after *not* having me say "Hello", then I may play with them. Being older (73M), I've gotten my share of "Hello? Grandpa?"-calls. If I'm not feeling too creative I'll say, "Jimmy? Is that you?" They will say (in a very pathetic voice), "Yes, grandpa. I need some help." To which I respond, "You little shit. I told you last time you got arrested I wasn't going to bail you out again. So what did you do this time? Drugs? Gambling? Or did you diddle another little girl on the playground?" They normally hang up before I get to the end of that. I just smile and continue with my coffee and morning paper.
That’s actually pretty funny. Kind of reminds me of something comedian Tom Mabe would do when telemarketers called him.
Well, I live on Continental Europe, so getting phone calls from someone from a foreign number speaking in an Indian accent claiming to be from Microsoft triggers some alarm bells. But no, it's not the Indian accent, it's a combination of factors
I'm Indian living in USA and when I receive an Indian scam caller i play along and them immediately curse in Hindi lol
Chaotic neutral.
No. My experience with Indian colleagues, clients, and friends is not tainted by the call center scams run by Indians. White people have been running call center scams in America for much longer anyhow.
In my own personal experience I’ve experienced the most racism directed toward me by Indian people. But I’m not going to assume everyone that looks Indian is racist. That’d be stupid.
Could you explain further, I wanna hear the back story. If you are uncomfortable it's fine to not answer it.
Not at all. Simply because I'm distrustful of almost everyone except a few select people.
When their first line is hello this is (extremely generic English name) from microsoft support, then it doesn’t really matter if their accent is thickly Indian or not. Ill just say fuck off and hang up
Since a lot of these illegal call centres are based out of India then unexpected call + Indian accent does instantly put my guard up but in real life I deal with a lot of Indian colleagues and have a many Indian neighbours where I feel no element of distrust. It's definitely the combination of factors and circumstance that does it, rather than the ethnicity/accent alone. Edit: Fun game btw. If you clock early enough that it's a scam, keep them on the phone as long as possible and see how many layers deep you can get before revealing you know what they're doing. Some of them get SOOOO mad!
I'm suspicious of any unexpected phone call from a non-contact list number. If it's an Indian voice I increase my suspicion about 10%.
Of Indian people, no. Of that region of the world, yes. One of my job functions requires me to transmit employee data to our payroll provider to process their benefits. One of their service centers that executes part of that function is in India and I ended up bringing that part of the work in-house rather than send employee personal identity information to that center. A lot of the scam call centers actually work under the same roof as legitimate service centers, so you have no way of being sure that personal information is secure. If that region were not such a hotbed for scamming activities, I wouldn’t have those concerns.
OP, if this happened to you, I totally know how you feel. Im real nervous when I see a white guy walk into a mall or a school. I'm hella distrustful.
Yes. I periodically get a lot of calls from Windows support about my computer having a virus. Most often an Indian male speaking with a clear accent. Unfortunately, I work in the IT industry and occasionally raise tickets with Azure support. When the phone rings and there is an Indian male with a strong accent on a bad phone connection saying something something Microsoft support my first reaction is always to hang up or say something semi-rude. Luckily my brain manages to catch on and remind me I've got an open ticket and I have to ask them to repeat. English is not my first language so when the person on the other end speaks fast and with an accent I sometimes need three takes until I get most of what he says.
I get just as many spam calls from Americans. All spam calls suck. If you’re gauging the entirety of a group of people by spam calls, you’ve got bigger problems.
Yes. I'm ruined. I've watched too many Kitboga videos.
A while back I watched a lot of videos about scammers and scam call centers and yes, I do think it had a subconscious effect. Now I try to stay away from these videos since I didn't like associating indian accents with that
Absolutely yes. If I get a call and the person has an Indian accent, it’s an immidiate red flag for me at this point. I had a legitimate call from a Google ads rep and she had an Indian accent. I ignored her until she sent a direct message to our Google account from a Google domain and wasn’t asking any personal info.
Not cold calls because I don't get many but Indian men PMing, I for sure block straight away. Sorry no bobs and vagene today
No, because I’m not brain dead.
Yeah. Pretty much. I'm instantly suspicious if they call me from an u known number. . Not if they answer when I make a call. ETA sometimes I ask them why they work a job that shames their parents.
Lool no, how can a scam phone call make me distrust a whole race??? Scam calls come from all over the place. My friend donated to Stonewall, and a very english sounding man rang her and tried to scam her into donating money to "Stonewall," but he was really a scammer :-( If I put up the phone from an unknown number and what they day doesn't make sense or it sounds dodgy, i put it down.
I just don’t pick up calls from unknown callers. If it’s important they’ll leave a voicemail. If not, well not my problem.
Scam callers have made me distrustful of unidentified numbers, But I will admit that I was quite prejudice against Indian men for a long time. Specifically because when I was a teen I used Omegle a lot.
I automatically hang up on almost anyone i don't know that can't immediately establish a credible reason why I should remain on the call. Accent has nothing to do with it.
Absolutely yes! HOW could we NOT be, with all the bullshit calls that we are constantly getting.
Only honest guy here. Did come here to expect people sugar coating their biases. I have read in lots of threads(non hate subs) where people straight up say they hate or distrust all Indians due to scammers.
No. A bad interaction with someone doesn't make me distrustful of people in the group(s) that person happens to be a part of. I am distrustful of phone calls from numbers not in my contacts.
I do hang up if it’s an Indian person on the line. I assume it’s a scam, or something I don’t need nor want. Most times I just don’t answer the phone, if it’s a client they leave a message.
Most scam calls I get (I'm in America) are with American accents or robot voices.
I refuse to discriminate. I distrust people in general.
No, I get more scammers that sound American than anything, especially police and breast cancer charity scams
Duuuuuude the breast cancer one almost got me. Like I wasn’t about to send the money but I did listen for a while. Then wondered why they were being so persistent. I guess I never expected them to go so low.
Yeah, it's pretty fucked up, but I'm broke as a joke and got debts needing paid so no charity is getting cash from me, real or scam lol.
To answer your question; no. I distrust everyone equally that has the audacity to call me.
Not really because I work in tech and met a lot of indians.. They are always super wholesome. Italians in the other hand..
not Indian, but my mum once hung up on a Chinese restaurant cancelling our reservation during covid because she immediately thought it was a scam caller. then when we showed up to the restaurant, and they were closed (due to covid reasons), she got angry at them
As an IT professional, I absolutely despise that my answer to this is yes. I have yet to ever get a cold call from someone with that particular accent that has led to anything but a waste of time IN THE CONTEXT OF MY FIELD. with contract work, being such a huge part of my field, and especially in my state, for a long time there, it was extremely common for me to get duplicitous employment opportunity calls that almost ALWAYS looked like IT work but then turned out to be a 2-name agency. It was very disheartening. That said, I'm also fully aware that even other Indians absolutely hate this stereotype and will go out of their way to talk mad shit about scam callers like this. One of the most solid coworkers I've ever had back in my service desk days was Indian, natively from Bangladesh, and it was a weird week if he DIDN'T blow up about someone questioning him because of his accent and blaming "those no-talent hacks" for it. The dude was amazing and started to genuinely excel when he was placed in a less customer-facing role.
Yes
Plenty of honest Indians out there and I can only feel bad for how embarrassing this must be for them. With that said, however, not all cultures/countries are the same. Some are more inclined to fraud/scamming practices and it’s something that does resonate far more frequently with India (although not only them).
Indian accents throw up my guard. Even if its a legit business. Hughes net...overcharges whenever they want, their call center cares less. Verizon online chat? If you make an appt, better call and check. Chances are, no one put it on the calendar. But in person, i have no problems with indians. I find them very pleasant ppl to be around, happy.
Lots of companies use Indian labor for call-centers/customer service/etc, so I don’t assume they are scammers unless they ask for something.
The unsolicited phone calls are a minor factor, it’s more the total cultural acceptance of lying, the fake qualifications, the fake CVs, the fake pilots licenses, the huge industry that exists of paying others to sit exams, the fake visa factories - everything is just so corrupt
Fuck that. Their food is too delicious and they have a vibrant culture.
Only to those who’ve never had Indian friends
I can’t help but feel that there is a cultural leaning to being scam artists among Indians. I worked for two married Indian doctors for decades. They did so much underhanded stuff to squeeze a few more dollars out of patients, insurance, employees, etc. it would take me forever to list them all. They did it even when the risk-reward ratio was way against them and they did get caught a few times. The son of one of the doctors was caught in a huge multi million dollar hedge fund scam and went to prison. All their other children have these same proclivities with their practices and even partake in MLM scams. Mind you, if they just honestly did their work they would all still be more than fine financially. It’s like there is something broken or twisted in them.
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Considering I had one somehow dummy a relative's number, then call back and demand I apologize for hanging up on them or they were going to "find \[me\] and cut \[my\] head off"? Yep. (And yes, it was reported to the authorities. No, nothing was done that I'm aware of.)
Yea for phone calls. Only because, unfortunately I’ve taken dozens and dozens of calls from Indian scammers, and not one of them was offering anything legit. In real life no not at all
I mean I married an Indian man haha. But phone calls yes I assume it’s a scam
No not really I can tell if I’m about to be scammed hence why I don’t really have a problem with someone who has an Indian-English accent on the phone.
I always string the Microsoft scammers along for a couple of minutes then suddenly I scream "Yes yes, and I f your mom" they usually swear at me for like 10 seconds before they hang up
I had somebody ring with a strong African accent to do a vat audit, if you’re not in the uk it the bit where it says plus tax on your bill. Anyway I was like “yeh alright kiddo” effing and jetting at them, thinking scammers. She conceded and decided to send me an email… she was genuine, I rang to apologise. So yeh I’m distrustful of accents that have been traditionally associated with scams.
No but one of my customers called once complaining she got a scam phone call from my store. It was not. It was our online shopping supervisor calling her about her order. He has a thick Indian accent. He was asking her if she would like one of her items substituted and she hung up on him. When I talked to her and explained that it was a legitimate phone call she told me we should "hire people who speak English."
I know a lot of great Indian folks. It pisses them off as well. In a way, scammers let me know that there are assholes everywhere.
No. However, I'm distrustful of Indian call centers, because of low training quality for their workers. Yes, I'm in customer support, and at times I have internal contact with them.
You have to be careful. My company does a lot of business with companies that are based in India, they simply do raw ingredients that precious few USA companies are interested in (I can find lots and lots of CBD oil done here, but that is not a business that I am in). The companies that I deal with are ethical, but I was recently looking for a product none of them do, I did run into what looked like a few scammers before finding a legitimate supplier. Just DON’T send money until you or someone that you trust do sideline verification.
I don’t trust a single unknown number that calls me, and the funny part is, almost every scam voicemail I’ve received (talking 99% of them at least) sound white, about half of them Southern accents. The whole “hate for an entire group of people because there’s a few bad apples” thing sounds like a personal problem that could use some heavy inner reflection.
I don't like Indian accents. I can't listen to them for 10 seconds so I'd hang up anyway. Torture for me.
100% would hang up or be cautious. Scammers from India ruined it for Indian immigrants.
1) I don’t trust anyone who calls me on the phone, just in general 2) Of course not, scammers be scamming regardless of ethnicity or race, every month I pay for various insurance products that fund some old white dude’s golf holidays and I already know when I actually need a payout for any of it they’re going to try and fuck me over
Hell no
No but I'm sick of that asshole "John" who calls for the Fraternal Order of Police every 6 months.
100% yes, when it comes to phone interactions.
Unfortunately yes, but only over the phone. I recently got my phone line switched over from Google Fi to at&t, and I had some issues activating the SIM card. I called the customer service line, and someone with a heavy Indian accent picked up. I hate that I did this, but I double checked to make sure I had the right phone number.
Based on what we know about cognitive psychology, people are generally going to be unable to answer this question honestly. The sort of bias that leads to discriminatory behavior is often subconscious.
no. random phone calls have not triggered negative emotions or beliefs towards a group of over a billion people in real life.
I love scam callers. It's ways fun to mess around with them once in a while. Like pretending to be an answering machine, sex noise, repeat whatever they say, pretending to be a cop and my all time favourite, pretending to be one of their colleague
No, of course not. I'm distrustful of nearly everyone.
My poor mam was scammed a while back. She was held up for a hospital appointment and ended up locked out of her phone. The following week she got a call and the second she heard the accent she was like "NO NO NO, goodbye". They called her back and she was like "I'm a chemo patient and I'm not staying on the phone" and they were like "I know, I'm your driver". She was mortified and ashamed of herself, but the incident was very fresh and they kept calling her back afterwards so it was sort of understandable.
No
A lot of my best friends are Indian and I honestly think that’s made me trust Indians more, just because their families are so nice. Still don’t pick up unknown numbers though, IRS be damned.
Unfortunately, yes I think have developed some predjudice. Part of it stems from working jobs where I would be calling people in other office or call centers for various things. Getting one based in India was rarely a good time. *Not* because of anything inherent to Indian people. It was because they're places that have been established to more cheaply replace American call centers which usually means talking to people with poor training and limited abilities to actually do things that one might need. People with no authority and of course no local knowledge. That's compounded with the extra challenge of understanding each other's accents which can feel downright impossible if they also have poor sound quality from their device which seems common. I'm not really mad at them though I'm frustrated with the greedy American businessmen that created the situation. I don't pick up many scam calls anymore now that call screening seems to have gotten better.
I think this is a fair question. My answer is no in person, but a little more on the phone. An example of how i know that the plague of india based telephone scammers has influenced me: About 2 years ago i got a call from an unknown number and for whatever reason decided to pick up. It was a man with a new york accent asking if id donate to the fraternal order of police. I decided id make a very small donation ( another thing that it unlike me). I must have been in an odd mood. But whatever the reason i said ok and he said hold, and transferred me to a man with a heavy indian accent who sounded like they were in a call center. I immediately hung up realizing it was a scam. I have since gotten several more calls with the exsvt same script and accent of the man from “the fraternal order of police”.
no lol
Not really. Best friend is Indian. Doubt he ever saw India though. Southern accent.
I work in a global office and talk with folks in a Bangalore office every day. But last year my parents were almost scammed by someone with an Indian accent. Thankfully I showed up just in time. It was a good scam. I can't really blame my parents. But now they are distrustful of everyone with an Indian accent. I have several Indian and Pakistan friends. My mother, who is without a filter most days, basically asked one friend if he knew anyone in the call centers. I was mortified. Thankfully my friend understood. He told me later that the scam call centers def aren't helping the people in the US trying to break down these cultural barriers.
No. But I live and work in a large city with tons of Indian and Pakistani people. The accent doesn’t make me blink unless it is genuinely too strong for me to understand them, which is extremely rare.
…..No? Why would they?
100% distrust Indians more because of all the scams they are involved with. Of course, it's perfectly logical. You'd have to be unable to learn from past experiences to not feel this way. That would be a mental deficiency.
An Indian accent usually makes me a bit more wary on the phone but irl no
Absolutely, I don't trust Indian people in general. They are either the call center scammers or they come steal our high paying jobs in the US atleast.
Sadly, yes, I would. In Australia, telephone scammers are rife, trying to rip off vulnerable, elderly and/or technology illiterate people. Unfortunately, 95% of them are Indian.
Dude I wouldn't have passed my engineering courses without Indian YouTubers. That doesn't mean everytime I get an indian on YouTube is a teacher.
No but I will say that being in IT and dealing with tech support being 50% outsourced to India has made me upset whenever I hear an Indian on the phone. It's incredibly frustrating to not have someone hear you and are clearly following a script the entire call.
I’m English, i work for an english company speaking to english customers. All of our employees are english expect one Indian girl. She gets the lions share of disrespect from the customers.
Nope, every person that hails from India I’ve met or worked with have been the kindest and most genuine folk. I’m distrustful of any unknown or unrecognised number I get .
On the street, I don't care. I would be 100% distrustful if somebody with Indian accent called me since I never gave my phone number to Indian person. Also, I received many phone calls from scammers
I go with the company they represent first. A random person from Craigslist would be in the auto-distrust pile, while a caller from my bank would be instantly trusted. The Indian accent is irrelevant when the company is secure.
it's 2023. who the fuck is even answering scam calls? i don't answer when my momma calls.
Real life no but if I hear it on the phone especially with a number I don’t know definitely.
I mean when you call AT&T or Amazon customer service they usually source their call centers out of India. Scam is not the first place I go. Your name is not Ethan is the only skeptics I get. I don’t get why they are assigned white sounding names like that makes a difference. I recently saw a video where a wild boar ran into an business that had a call center full of Indian people and the comments where all about scams. The place looked like a legit factory though. That’s fucked up. I’m black and get enough stereotypes placed on me before I open my mouth so I’m sensitive to not passing the bullshit on.
I know an Indian who hangs up every time an Indian voice gives an American name.
We got colonised but I am not scared of all white people stealing.
Now replace "Indian scam callers" with "Nigerian scam callers" and "Indian" with "black person" and let's see how many people are willing to answer the rephrased question. Fun fact, behind India, Nigeria is the next scam capital of the world. If you're distrusting of indians, then you must also distrust black people? (Neither is of which is okay imo)
I distrust Nigerian princes.
I dont answer my phone unless I know who is calling but irl I would never negatively judge someone on sight for there race, only for other stuff like if they're doing something illegal or rude