Shadowing Practice: Inside a scam call center - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Over the past six months, I've had unprecedented access to a scam call centre.
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Over the past six months, I've had unprecedented access to a scam call centre.
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YouTube's policies have meant that I've had to blur certain sections of this video, but if you're a patron of mine, you can access the full uncensored version through Patreon.
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This video gives a unique view of how these scams operate and who these scammers really are.
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Critical alert from Michael Shirt.
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You're looking at the webcam of a scammer named Deva War...
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He is currently uploading phone numbers of people who will be his next potential victims.
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All of the phone numbers are from people who have previously fallen victim to a pop-up scam, as you can see here.
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Knowing that these people are already victims is particularly useful to this group of scammers because they operate a refund scam.
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They'll pretend to be a real computer company and make calls like this.
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Hi, we are calling you from Microsoft Refund Department.
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If you remember,
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you have a contract with us for computer support and services unfortunately we are closing the business so
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you can give us a call for the refund of the amount you paid to claim your refund please
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call us on 877 281 1024 the way that deva and the rest of the people in this call center get their leads is via WhatsApp or directly by email.
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Here you can see him using WhatsApp to download a spreadsheet of the most recent victims.
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When he has the list of numbers, he will then look at it in a spreadsheet to make sure that it will go into the outbound calling software.
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He will remove any duplicates before starting a campaign.
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Here they've been emailed a fresh list of numbers.
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Once they've downloaded this list, they will start up their VoIP software.
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Here they're using voxaccount.com.
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And that's a legitimate piece of software which will allow them to make lots of outbound calls.
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They will charge up their Vox account with about $100 every few days, and the eight or so agents will sit and wait for inbound calls.
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Here you can see the rate of these calls.
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The icons at the bottom represent agents who are ready to receive calls, and they're in green.
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And anyone actively engaged in the call is coloured amber.
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So let's go for a little office tour whenever one of these outbound campaigns are in action.
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As you can see, the offices are very small and cramped, and each agent has only a very basic PC on his desk.
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They don't use phones and instead use VoIP software.
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They will use Xlight for their inbound calls and 3CX for the outbound ones.
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A lot of these scammers smoke, so you can imagine the smell in this place.
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But this particular PC is a laptop so it can be carried around the office.
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So courtesy of this particular scammer we're going to get a little tour of exactly what the office looks like.
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Listen carefully to the scams going on in the background.
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There is an option.
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You see that?
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Blackua.
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Click on that option.
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Download.
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Blackua.
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Hello?
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Hello?
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I have to click on download.
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What's come up?
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Yes.
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Then P as in Peter.
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Right, scroll it down the page.
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In a minute.
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I am showing you team weaver format.
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Do you see that?
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There is a black flag like the outside.
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Then P is in Peter.
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Okay, scroll down the page.
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Now it's back up on your screen.
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A little bit.
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I'm going to Peter.
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I'm back in office.
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Hold on, hold on.
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I'm showing you Team Beaver format.
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Do you see that?
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There's a black flag on the left here.
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Now, sir, have a look on the black box and...
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What do you see now?
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...the receiver lane, receiver band...
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Now, underneath the Team Beaver format is a nuclear box download now.
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There's on that.
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Alright, sir.
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Because see, I can't see this screen right now.
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And after click on it, ma'am, I'm a little bit right inside on the very top of your computer screen, beside the address bar.
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There is any blue-color or black-color down arrow.
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Click on that arrow.
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Er ch harm her
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not infra Yours So as you can see they are quite small offices, one of the smallest groups of scammers I've encountered.
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But equally you can also appreciate that this laptop is on a wireless network and it's that wireless network that gives me a good clue as to exactly where these offices are located.
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I already knew from the IP address what the approximate location was, they're in Calcutta or Kolkata in India.
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But to pinpoint their location it's possible to use additional information and I get this from their wireless access information.
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On screen you can see a list of wireless networks.
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This PC has connected to those wireless networks and some of them are even active now.
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Together with the signal strength and using some Google map data it's possible to pinpoint their location within 150 metres.
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So these scammers are close to the centre of Kolkata, to the east of the river and very near the Rippon Residency.
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I needed to be as accurate as I could with their location because I wanted to report them to the cyber police in Kolkata.
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I couldn't give them a business address because they're not a business, they just all know each other.
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So I also wanted to figure out their various names, but I could only do this by listening to some audio, so I listened and watched their scams over the next few weeks and months.
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I was particularly keen to identify this group because they did some of the most awful things that I've seen any group do before.
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The person on screen is called Christy.
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They offered her a refund, but instead they turned on her webcam, threatened her, grabbed pictures of her children, and ultimately tried to delete all of her files.
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If you haven't seen this video, there's a link to it in the description below.
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So over the next few weeks, I observed this team running the refund scam.
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Here they are editing HTML to make it look as if they've transferred money to the victim and will want the money back of course.
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They describe themselves as NTS IT Care.
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These are another scamming organisation in Kolkata where they get most of their data from.
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But there's a rule that I'm going to let you know.
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But before going to let you know, I do believe you can see your computer screen.
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And if you can see your computer screen ma'am.
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So first of all do me a favour, simply sign out from your bank account madam.
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The refund scam works by the scammer persuading the victim to log into their bank account.
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He will have promised a certain amount but he'll edit the screen so it looks as if too much has been put in.
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He will then ask the victim to return the money through a bank transfer or more likely these days some sort of gift card.
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When you're going to your bank right again to sending that money exactly so you don't need to tell your bank people that hey I have transferred that money on the first time the money gets cancelled and that's why I ask.
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You can watch him on this webcam coaching the victim what to say when she goes into the bank.
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my god might be i don't know because i live in california you know so by okay suppose if the same people okay
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tell them hey i want to transfer that money when you tell them that might be they can open your bank account and check that all right but they will not ask you this thing that hey these monies get cancelled because the reason we
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of course but you can tell them hey i want to transfer again to him because it's required all right second time i do
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just see on the second no they will not ask you this money get back to you or whatever because the reason we are hiding these things from your bank you bank people they will not able to see that the money get cancelled i'm telling you that all right
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The refund scam usually requires the victim not to speak to anyone in the bank and this particular scammer has persuaded her that the bank are in on a scam and not to mention any details to anyone in the bank.
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now just no they can't see that because just see we just see your bank and my bank are connected each
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other so i had shown you this thing that hey ma'am this has happened but in the computer your bank computer screen will be
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not sure that the money get cantilever just shows that 29 250 dollar has been created but this thing it will be not shows
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that money get cancelled understand i'm telling you that because i'm the man of my word and at the same time your bank and my bank they are connected
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to each other and i will not give the permissions to your bank as well that they can look that the money get cancelled
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and that's why you come here okay i'm telling you that all this time i was quietly observing their scams in action and i didn't let any of the victims that i observed fall victim to any of the scams.
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But I did want to disrupt them as much as I possibly could.
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So when I observed them making contact with a company called Dialer360.com in order to set up a new outbound campaign, I saw an opportunity.
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What they do is send an outbound message to potential victims about a refund, and this was my opportunity to substitute the audio.
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Interestingly, I also observed that Dialer 360 were completely complicit in the scam that was going on.
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In fact, they even wanted the audio which would be played to the victims.
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They didn't have the expertise themselves, so they drafted in an expert called Hazran who set up Dialer 360 so that this group of scammers were set up correctly to scam the maximum number of victims.
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Dialer360 didn't exactly care who was buying their software and whenever they asked for a scanned ID card the reply was why no one's ever asked for that before and that seemed perfectly acceptable to Dialer360.
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They allocated the direct international dial or DID number regardless.
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So I thought carefully about the best way to disrupt this new campaign.
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Obviously I couldn't stop them getting new numbers, but what I could do is hopefully get a warning to their potential victims.
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So I thought I would substitute the audio.
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This is what their original audio sounded like.
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Hi, we are calling you from Microsoft Refund Department.
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If you remember, you have a contract with us for computer support and services.
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Unfortunately, we are closing the business.
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So you can give us a call for the refund of the amount you paid to claim your refund.
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Please call us on 747-212-9887.
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I repeat 747-212-9887 or press 1 to talk with our executive.
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Thank you.
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And I decided to replace it with this.
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Hello, this is an automated message being sent from scammers from India.
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They were going to try to scam you by claiming that you would get a refund from your computer maintenance company.
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However, this is just a scam so that they can access your computer and will try to get money from your bank account.
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If you ever get a message like this, it is always a scam.
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Please do not mention that I have changed their message, but if you would like to waste their time, you can speak to these scammers by pressing one on your telephone keypad.
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And as it turned out, this was the most effective way of getting a message to some of their potential victims.
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all at the expense of the people making the calls, the scammers themselves.
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Not only did I keep substituting the audio and only replacing it whenever they were asking for a bit of help from Dialer 360 but I also increased the rate of these calls to drain their money as quickly as I possibly could.
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Although this footage is sped up, I watched overnight as I drained all of their money.
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The total consumption is the cost in dollars.
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and every cent which is being consumed means a message is getting to one of their prospective victims.
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All very satisfying.
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And all this time they couldn't work out why they weren't getting the expected volume of calls.
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From their chat logs it was quite obvious to them that they were having some sort of problem but couldn't pinpoint it.
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Eventually when I drained all of their money over several weeks they figured out there must have been some sort of compromise and finally they twigged that there was something going on with their audio.
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But I still had very blurry photographs through a webcam of the people involved so I was thrilled whenever Deva uploaded his wedding photographs to the internet and I was able to get a lot clearer pictures of his workmates.
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So although I don't know who's who here I do know there's an Amit, there's a Rizwan, there's a TUSIF and there's a Waseem.
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I did email the Kolkata Cyber Police in the hope that they would do something.
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I sent them a link to the unblurred version of this video but I've had absolutely nothing back from them.
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I can only assume they're not going to do anything.
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Therefore I'm left with posting this to YouTube and you'll also find a link in the description to the unblurred version which is on d.tube.
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If I hear back from the police I'll be sure to post an update but the first people who get to know are my patrons and I thank them for sponsoring me.
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If you wish to become a patron, there's a link here and I'm also on Twitter at JimBrowning11.
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Again, thank you for watching.
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Context & Background
Recent insights into the operations of a scam call center provide a perplexing look at how dishonest individuals manipulate vulnerable populations. In this specific instance, a whistleblower has gained access to the inner workings of the center, showcasing how scammers like Deva War strategically target potential victims. These operatives often prey on individuals who have previously fallen victim to other scams, using their information to launch further fraudulent activities. Understanding such contexts is crucial for English learners, as it highlights the real-world implications of language use in everyday conversations, especially in sensitive situations.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “Hi, we are calling you from the Microsoft Refund Department.” – This phrase exemplifies how scammers introduce themselves, serving as a warning for learners to recognize misleading communication.
- “Please call us on [number] to claim your refund.” – Noting this structure helps students understand how scammers create a sense of urgency.
- “We have a contract with you for computer support and services.” – This phrase highlights common professional jargon that can appear in misleading contexts.
- “Make sure to scroll down the page.” – A useful instruction that showcases how clear guidance is essential in effective communication.
- “Is this the correct option?” – This reflects an essential aspect of confirmation in conversations, applicable in both personal and professional interactions.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To tackle the complexity found within this video transcript, learners can apply the shadowing technique for effective english speaking practice and comprehension. Here’s a structured approach to incorporate what you've learned:
- Listen Actively: Start by listening to the video multiple times without pausing. Pay attention to the tone, pace, and pronunciation.
- Repetition: Select short segments of dialogue, ideally focusing on key phrases like those mentioned above. Repeat them aloud, emulating the speaker's intonation.
- Record Yourself: Use a recording device to capture your own shadow speech. This helps you identify areas where your pronunciation and rhythm may differ from the original.
- Analyze Your Speech: Listen to your recordings critically. Pay close attention to how closely you align with the original speaker’s articulation.
- Practice Regularly: Make this exercise a daily routine. The more you practice, the more natural your shadow speaks will become, enhancing your fluency.
By engaging with the content in this way, learners will not only develop their understanding of specific English phrases but also sharpen their overall conversation skills, empowering them to communicate more effectively in various situations.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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