Giving Offshore Outsourcing a Bad Name Mphasis workers arrested for pilfering money in India

By Robert Wright, VARBusiness

VARBusiness, Mon. May. 23, 2005 From the May 30, 2005 VARBusiness The Indian outsourcing industry was forced to deal with a significant dent to its credibility recently when it was revealed that a trio of workers at Mphasis' call center in Pune were arrested for allegedly stealing Citibank customers' PIN numbers and using the information to pilfer an estimated $350,000 from those U.S. customers.

According to news reports, a total of nine arrests were made last month; three of the accused were employees at Mphasis, one of India's largest outsourcing firms. The arrests were made after a handful of Citibank customers noticed money missing from their accounts and complained to the financial-services company. Mphasis issued a statement saying it regretted the incident, but assured customers that its security system is adequate and that it was "quite pleased the detection systems worked."