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Indian call centre manager 'stole British IDs in insurance scam'
Ellen Widdup20 Jan 2009
AN INVESTIGATION has been launched into the manager of an Indian call centre accused of stealing British identities for an insurance racket.
Edward Burn, 30, who is the son of an Indian civil servant, is said to have admitted taking £56,900 from 12 UK customers of insurance firm Aviva after using their details to make bogus claims and having the payments made to accomplices based in London.
Burn had been at the EXL Service in Noida, Delhi, since March 2004 and is believed to have confessed to raiding accounts for two years.
But detectives say this could be the tip of the iceberg and are scouring the records of thousands of Britons whose insurance details were stored in the centre.
Police also said they are speaking to three British citizens living in London, named as E Maurice, Chi Shigongli and Cheryl Rebiero, in connection with the case.
A spokeswoman for Aviva, whose group includes Norwich Union, said: "We are working to take appropriate action. At no time was any policyholders' money at risk."
Reader views (7)
Well, well, would you believe it. Anyone with any common sense could see that outsourcing personal banking data to a call centre half way around the world would result in fraudulant transactions before too long. You may just as well have responded to one of those email scams asking for your bank details, just about as secure.
- Pat, Birmingham UK, 21/01/2009 11:22
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I.D cheating in various fields are common. There is no hard punishment to such culprits.Not freezing their assets, while they have earned on such bad earing.Sever punishment should be awarded to such criminals, so the others should learn lesson.
- M Amjad, London, 21/01/2009 09:52
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I live in Spain for most of the year and have just closed all my bank accounts because my bank (they are a Spanish national bank and own most of Britain) had no idea what cloning or ID theft was.
They kept repeating the mantra "if you haven't told anyone your pin number only you can use the card" over and over. Britain seems to be the only country in Europe that is on the ball when it coes to this type of fraud.
- Casper Slides, France at the moment, 21/01/2009 00:43
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Ah Ha now to one of my all time favourite gripes,it was only approx 31/2 years ago I had to explain to some Metro Police Officers what I.D. theft and cloning was and now all that is needed is your bank account number to strip your assets; Estate Agents and Landlords want to see every detail of ones finances and in a recession I have seen Estate Agency owners having their cars and homes seized and Agents working in fast food outlets "would you like chips with that"having lost everything,yet these people have had all of your info at their disposal and your good references are not sufficient to obtain a rental without divulging all one financial details
- Ereed, San Francisco,USA, 20/01/2009 17:43
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Fraud is controllable but inevitable… be it in home land or at an offshore destination. The fact (evidenced from industry figures) is that, possibility and probability to commit fraud at offshore destination is much less than that in home land. But, fraud or failure at an offshore destination always catches the eyes of international media.
The only way out is to strengthen the internal controls – and that too across all levels. Engaging appropriate control clusters, and in the desired blend shall come to our rescue.
Technology has brought-in in-built vulnerabilities… vulnerabilities were not invented, but discovered by fraudsters.
- Lince Lawrence, Trivandrum, India, 20/01/2009 15:01
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My credit cards have been raided three times and the money has ended up in Pakistan and Turkey. If I am about to pay on my card over the telephone, I put the telephone down if there is a foreign accent at the other end.
- Fred, Horsham, 20/01/2009 14:43
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Offshoring an unqualified success right then lads?
I suffered a Cred Card cloning soon after dealing with an UK bank's offshored call centre but try proving it was them.
That said we have oodles of home grown scallies all at 'it'.
Ultimately we ALL pay for the unsolved fraud with higher charges etc.
- Ethan Edwards, UK, 20/01/2009 11:33
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