India BPOs under scanner after TV channel exposes data leak

The association is also trying to get the information from Star News that has telecast footage related to the same case.

Last June, the HSBC employee in Bangalore was arrested after £ 230,000 was stolen from British customers' accounts.

However, this time, unlike the HSBC-like cases where BPO employees were in the firing line, the charges are against middlemen.

Presently, the only available information is that Channel 4 has on record a middleman named Sushant Chandak offering to sell a database with the credit card details of 200,000 people as commercial "leads." At a meeting in Calcutta, he seems to have boasted of a network of agents in call centers across India.

In addition to credit card numbers, Chandak was also offering passport numbers, driving license numbers and personal banking details, the report alleged.

In a separate meeting, Chandak offered the details of 8,000 British mobile phone users. He even apparently had tapes of customers being called at home from a call center.

A second New Delhi-based middleman known as Ghufran is offering details of customers with Halifax, Nationwide, Woolwich, Bank of Scotland and NatWest for £ 5 each. The details are believed to have been obtained from purchases using cards, the report claims.

Ghufran claimed the information was obtained by technical support staff which visited call centers and used memory sticks to download recent sale transactions.

According to the newspaper, Chandak and Ghufran have denied selling information unlawfully. Chandak reportedly said the information he provided was not genuine while Ghufran said he was passed the data.

Meanwhile, the industry has also come down heavily on the so-called global sting operations targeting the Indian BPO industry. "We are concerned about the veracity of such stories, especially sting operations. Uncovering crime in society is one thing and inducing crime by offering monetary inducements is another," said Karnik.