Minister calls for call centre sabotage

Australia's Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts has urged New South Wales (NSW) consumers to hit back against a new breed of sophisticated scammers by bombarding their call centre out of business, reports The Daily Telegraph.

After revealing the number of scam reports has doubled in 2011 compared to last year, Roberts said it was time to fight fire with fire.

He said the scammers were based overseas and appeared to be using cheap labour to personalise and expand their operations.

“I want NSW consumers to melt their call centre down,”' Roberts added, after he had rung the call centre himself and frustrated one of their operatives for 15 minutes. “I want people to waste their time.”

According to the Toronto Sun, his main grievance is with operations that pose as divisions of the federal or state government and promise to refund thousands of dollars in over-charged bank fees - but only after the target wires a sum of money through Western Union.