Reply All - #164 Long Distance: The Real Alex Martin

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Three years after Alex Goldman traveled to India to investigate a scammy call center, he gets a tip that makes him question everything he learned in his first trip. Long Distance Part I Long Distance Part II Akash's YouTube Akash's podcast episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I'm Alex Goldman. And I'm PJ Vote. So, PJ, there's a reason that I wanted to talk to you, and it's because I have to make a correction. What is your correction? Do you remember the story long distance? Yes.

How long ago was that? Three years now. And before you even get started, I should say that this episode's going to contain a lot of spoilers for those episodes. So if you haven't listened to them, go back and listen to episodes 102 and 103. But basically, a couple years ago, I did this story about,

about my relationship with a tech support scammer in India. And it began when I got this robocall saying that my iCloud might be compromised, so I decided to call the number back. Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line, and you'll be transferred to the next available agent. Thank you for calling online sporty talking to Alex. How can I help you? What a coincidence.

My name is Alex. I got a call that said that there was some... No, your name is Michael Goldman. My middle name is Alex. I go by Alex. Oh, you go by Alex. Okay, Alex, how can I help you? This guy tells me his name is Alex Martin.

And at first he's just doing like your standard tech support phone call. Like, oh, you have a virus, pay us, blah, blah, blah. But like, when I make it clear to him, I know this is a scam. He drops the facade in the craziest way possible. I'm looking up this phone number online. It does not say that it is any, it's related to Apple in any way. So I'm trying to figure out who you are. We are anonymous.

We are legend. Expect us. You're anonymous, your Legion, expect you? Yeah. Are you coming for me? We'll be demolishing all your social identities. So eventually he admits he's not part of Anonymous, that he's just your average everyday telephone scammer.

But then he was like talking to me about being a telephone scammer in this way that was completely shameless. Don't you feel bad at all about scamming? people who don't know anything about computers? No, I don't. Why not? Why would I? Because...

You guys have a lot of money. That's the reason we spend. But how do you know how much money I have? We judge them. Like, we make a judgment. Like, somebody with the name Richard or with having a very good name, you say, like, they must be having a good amount of money.

So I stayed on the phone with this guy for about 20 minutes. And I just thought he was fascinating. And I had the call center's number, so I just kept calling back. and I would always get super excited when I got this guy. Same Alex Martin, so you remember me? How's it going, man?

I've been trying to get in touch with you for weeks. My goodness, I was a lot of... If you remember, I really liked him. Yes, I do. I think what I liked about him is that I feel like we're cut from the same cloth. I would say obnoxious and chatty are two words you could use to describe me.

And that's how I would also describe Alex Martin. Like, after I talked to him, I was just like, oh, I just want to, like, give this guy my gamer tag and we could like hang out and team speak the whole night, you know? And I called back enough that he eventually gave me his cell phone number. And he told me his real name was Kamal. He says he's the manager of the call center, which is called the Costings. And instead of talking to him in the office, I was talking to him at his house, like in the middle of the night.

Any time whenever you come to India, I'll have to call me, okay? I might. I mean, if you visit New Delhi. Yeah, just come. Just come for two, three days, and I'll make you visit places like Taj Nail, you know, Agra. And in these phone calls, he sounded very subdued, like very quiet, not quite as jokey. And we kind of debated in the office, like, is this the same guy? But I was pretty sure it was.

I just figured maybe he sounded a little different because of the change of setting. And eventually, he invited me to India. And I was like, of course I'm going to go. Like, I get to hang out with the guy who, like, worked at the call center and he will answer all my questions. But when I got to India, he was like a completely different person. was not fun to be around. Seemed like he was just barely putting up with me rather than enjoying my company.

And like I left India feeling like that it was kind of a bust. We didn't learn what we'd set out. You thought a little jilted. Yeah, a little bit. Because it was like you got this, you thought you were going to get Alex Martin, your friend and said you got this dude

who was cold and angry and was behaving way more the way you would expect a guy who runs a scammy calls enter to behave when a journalist shows up at his house. Okay. Well, when you put it, that way, yes, yes. But then, like, after we put the story out, and this is the correction that I wanted to tell you, one of the people from the call center who I had spoken to for

the story got in touch with me and was like, hey, Kamal, the guy you met in India, he is not Alex Martin. Alex Martin is someone else. Those are two different people. And I'm pretty sure what happened is that during a particular call with Alex Martin, Kamal just like grabbed the phone away from him and basically to keep me from calling the call center anymore, gave me his cell phone number, and that's how I ended up talking to him when he was at home. That makes way more sense. So you talked to one person on the phone, you went in and you met another person. You actually never got to have the experience that you thought you were going to have. You never got to see your friend. That's true. I never got to go see my friend. But the same source who said that they

were two different people pointed me to the real Alex Martin. They sent me his Facebook profile, and after a decent amount of haranguing, I actually managed to get him on the phone. Hey, Alex. How are you? I'm good. How are you? What's going on? I'm doing great. Thanks for asking, man. It's been a long time. It has been a long time. It has. And he tells me his real name. Oh, yeah, it's Akash. Akash Shama? That's my name. So Akash and I started talking, and I'm very stoked to finally be talking to this guy that I had basically wanted to since the beginning of the long-distance saga.

but pretty much immediately, the reply-all team falls into the same debate that we were having during the original long distance because Shruthy was like, Alex, are you sure that this is really Alex Martin? Like, she said that the guy who answered the phone when I first called Acostings sounded like someone she went to high school with, and this guy that I'm talking to now has a different accent. So we decided to call him up. Hello, is this Akash? Uh, yeah, hi, who is it? Hi, Akash, this is Shruti Penamennini. I work at Replyal. Hey, Kash.

Oh, okay. Hey, Alex, I'm here. Hey, Alex is on the phone, too. So, Akash, I'm sorry to call you so late. I wanted to say I heard your interview with Alex, and you don't sound like Alex Martin to me. Okay. So I wanted to ask who you are.

All right. So you're saying that I don't sound like Alex Martin, right? Yeah, the guy who picks up and who says, I'm anonymous, I'm Legion, you don't sound like him. No, that wasn't me, to be honest. All right, so PJ, this is, now I have to issue a second correction because Akash told me that Alex Martin was not one person. Whoa. Yeah, it was a name that everyone in the office would use when they knew I was calling. Like, everybody knows, okay, Alex Copeland calls in and he just, you know, just boast about some stuff and just wait a time.

So everybody started to, you know, just use it as a bait. Okay, fine. You're calling me, I am Alex. Or anybody, XYZ is taking up the call, he becomes Alex. So that was kind of an activity that, you know, just have, they just made it up for fun, I guess. Akash told me that he was not the first Alex Martin that I spoke to, but he was one of the Alex Martins that I spoke to. Oh, my God. So it's like you partly because apparently you are not very good at telling the accents of Indian men apart.

You made this very strong connection with someone you thought was a person. It was actually like a composite character. And even though that sort of sucks, you're still basically trying to hang out with your composite character friend. So you're saying like I got catfished and I'm wounded by it. A little bit, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I wanted to be his pal. I liked him.

I thought he was funny. It just turns out that there were many of him. So anyway, Shruthi devised this test to confirm that he was like one of the Alex Martins that I wanted to be friends with, which was to grab a transcript from the episode, from the original episode, and have us recreate it on the phone to make sure he was who he said he was. So Akash, I just sent you a very long, I just sent you a very long message on WhatsApp. And Shruthi was wondering if you could read some of the sections from it, the Alex Martin sections, like the part where you say, say like,

you're a famous personality on Google or, or. In fact, in fact, we could recreate the conversation. Alex, you read your points. Alex Martin, you read your parts. Okay, Tom, fun. All right. All right. Okay.

So which one did you pick? Which phone call? So the call that Akash said was him in the original episode. It's about 14 minutes in. And it's like one of the most memorable calls for me, because it's like very quintessential Alex Martin. Like he, you know,

he plays all, he, like, plays all the hits. He's, uh, he is kind of an asshole. He makes fun of me.

He is pretty charming. He seems like he's having a lot of fun. And he stays on the phone for like, way longer than you'd imagine him to. Uh, so how to go. We, Akash and I reenacted a bunch of the moments from that call.

And I'm going to play you a couple. So first, here's a clip from 2017. You're a famous personality on Google. you know, so you just Google your name and you got a silly-looking guy having a half-bald hairs, big fat, and reading a spectacles, having a weird smile. Oh, yeah, I do have a weird smile. And here's the 2020, Akash.

Yeah, your famous personality in Google, you know, you just Google your name and you've got a silly-looking guy, half bald hairs, big fat and bearing a spectacle, waiting as a weird thing. smile. And then here's another clip from 2017. But that is, it's sounding like him. Yes, it is sounding like him. Can I just point out that what you has done is you've taken a person whose initial job was to call you and read from a script, but who was bad at the job because he couldn't stick to that script. You've now taken, made a script of that conversation and you are having him call you and read from that. I guess I'd never thought about it like that. But yeah. Anyway, here's a clip from the original episode. What do I play? Yeah.

Oh. Warcraft. Are you good at CounterStrike? Pretty good. I'm hell good. I suck at that game. I suck at that game. You suck at that game.

You suck it? Why? Come on. And then here is the Akash 2020 script read. What do I play? Counter strike? Ooh. Your read of use pretty good.

Yeah, Warcraft. Are you good at CounterStrike? Pretty good. I'm hella good. I suck at that game. I suck at that game. I remember this. I remember this.

I remember this. Yeah. You suck it. Why? Come on. Uh, Shruthi. Akash, thank you so much for doing that. Okay.

I think that was you. So Trithy's convinced. Yeah, she's convinced. Can I ask, Akash? Like, how does it feel for you to read those words that you said years ago? Like, does it feel like you recognize the person who said them? Sure, I'll swear on this one. I am really am embarrassed right now for the kind of things I said because I today, I know the person I am, I would never.

I mean, it's really weird. I can't even imitate this and me imitate this again. I can't say this thing. I don't know why I said that. So when I'd been talking to Akash three years ago, there were like a ton of things I wanted to know about his life and about the call center. But when I got to India, the person who was playing Alex Martin at the time, was actually his scary boss who just wanted me to stop reporting the story altogether. So it's like now, finally, I get to ask Akash my questions.

Cool. After the break, Akash's story. Welcome back to the show. So at this point, I knew I had an actual Alex Martin who'd worked at Akostings. And so I wanted to ask him all of the questions that I had asked the wrong guy three years ago. Like, how does someone end up working at an Indian scam call center? And, like, what is that job like? So what did you learn about Akash?

So Akash grew up in Mumbai. He moved to Delhi with his family when he was, like, seven or eight years old. He was, like, really into sports when he was in high school, had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, really. And he told me that at the time he started at Akostings, he had just gotten out of high school. I was young. He was very young.

And at the time, like, his dad who owned a business, his business wasn't doing very well, his mom wasn't working. And so he needed to get a job. Did he know what he was signing up for? He totally didn't know what he was signing up for. When you interviewed, were you nervous? Oh, yes. What were you nervous about? I was nervous about because I really wanted a job because I left the previous one because I was not paid enough.

So I went there. It was the afternoon time, if I remember it will. It was almost 2 or 3 p.m. What did you wear to your interview? I was dressed formal. I mean, yeah, I don't remember exactly what I was reading, but yes, I was formally dressed. FYI, I look good in formal, okay? Okay.

Well, that makes one of us. Did you get an idea of sort of what they were looking for? Was it more people who were techie, or was it more people who spoke good English and could communicate well? What was the? I'll tell you, I used to sell people solar in Australia. That's what he used to do. I did that job for six months. So I had a good accent, sort of a good accent,

and I knew how to deal with customers who are, you know, because Australian people are said to be stereotypically angry and rude. Is that true? I don't know. That's a stereotype I have heard a lot of times, but I find them really good. Okay. So that was a plus point in my resume at that time

that they find that, okay, he had dealt with the Australian people. He might do good with the U.S. people as well. So Kosh gets this gig at a costings. he starts going to work at the same building that Damiano and I eventually visited right above headphones, the headphone club. That's the place where you listen to music on, you can dance, but with headphones

so no one can hear the music you're dancing too. So dancing could be more ridiculous and embarrassing than there already is. But the way that it worked is like, his shift started at night because they needed to call people in the U.S. during the middle of the day. So he would wake up in the evening,

he'd buy himself a juice. A Kostings actually sent a cab to pick him up every night. It was very fancy. I thought so too, but I actually found out that that's like very standard for companies that do night shift calls to the U.S. So he would take the elevator of the fourth floor and he would hand his phone to the security guard at the door. So when you enter, you submit a phone, all right, because you're not allowed any of your devices in there because then you can steal information of the customers or their credentials like card information and stuff.

So they used to keep the phone outside with the guard. If you usually get a token against it, that's whenever we leave, we can take it back. Did they lock you in? Because when I went there, they had the shutters down. No, no, no. I don't remember anything like this. They might have done that because you came in so that you cannot see or talk to any of them.

Probably. And yeah, probably that was a reason. Because as far as I remember, nothing like that happened. Akash told me that the office had actually pretty nice. Like it was air condition. The seats were comfy. And at first he was actually doing legitimate calls. Like he was calling people in the UK about phone bills or something like that.

He told me he can't exactly remember what he was doing. But what catches his attention is that there's another group of people on the same call floor that have kind of like a rarefied air about them. They're doing something that he heard was Microsoft technical support. They seems like they're getting paid more. They're like having more fun. They seem cooler. It was like the cool kids table at lunch, you know? It's so funny that the workplace was set up as temptation.

You know what I mean? It's like the straight and narrow job that's boring that doesn't pay is like sitting across the room from the like a legal job that's fun and exciting and pay sums of money. And it's just like how long until you crack. Yeah. I mean, but the thing is they weren't like, that's not how they framed it. They didn't tell him that those people were scamming. They were just making more money. Right.

And really the centerpiece for that group was this giant whiteboard where they'd mark down their sales. Akash would always notice people going up to it and ostentatiously writing big numbers on it. And I used to see people are making $1,000, $500, and I was like, damn, that's a lot of money, you know, because I was getting my regular salary. There was no incentives, and I got to know that these tech support people are getting incentives out of it. I was like, shit. By incentives, he just means sales commissions.

And then I asked the management that I guess I want to get shipped into technical support instead of this UK customer support service. So, yeah, that's how it all started. Rukash really needed the money because his family had taken out a loan to pay for his college. He was taking classes during the day. And so the bosses start letting him work on this other team. This team was the whiteboard. And at first, he's just training where he just listens into other people's calls.

But all they're letting and listen to is the beginning of the calls, like the part where people call in and say, hey, I got a message that I was hacked. So I didn't really know what happens next because they just transferred the call to the senior. What happens next? So they would keep the actual scam component. from you. Yeah, exactly. I was having a perception that they might actually connect with the Microsoft to support

team after this. Oh, you thought that they might connect them. I actually had an impression for a few days that they do this and that's how they get the incentive. But finally, one day they let him hear the second half of the call. And what he hears is not a senior technician passing the customer off to Microsoft. Instead, the senior technician told the caller that for like $400, a costings would provide ongoing technical support for them.

And Akash knew that that service did not exist. When you realized that it was a scam, like when you realized that you were scamming people, what did you, was your first impulse to be like, to like let people know? Or was your first impulse to just be like, well, okay, this is a good way to make money? When I first got to know, I was surprised, not okay. All of a sudden, $400 in the pocket. Damn. I was really happy.

Okay, I'm going back home with $400, yay. So he decides at this point, like, okay, I'm going to be rich, so maybe I can ignore my guilt for a little while. But then I got to know at the end of the day, you only get used to get the equivalent in the rupees. So if you made a $400 sale, you get $400 rupees. Oh, okay. And I was like, what the if? I mean, $400 rupee is $5.40 in the U.S. right now. Yeah. If I go to KFC now, I spend more than that.

Right. The whiteboard used to tell you a very different story. It hadn't occurred to Akash before this moment that the scammy company that he worked for would also scam him, which, like, of course they would. But even though he's pissed, the money he was making was really helping, so he decides to stick it out. Got it. And when people asked him about his new job, he'd just be like, oh, I work for Microsoft. So he felt a little bit ashamed. Totally. And so he was doing this job that he was feeling kind of bad about. And then this other thing started happening at work, which is that I started calling. And Akash told me that like, even though everybody who was taking the calls was doing the like Alex Martin roleplay game with me, the bosses did not find my presence funny at all.

They used to hate you. Hade you a lot. Were they like discussing you in like staff meetings? Apparently. Apparently I was enough. I mean, I called every day, sometimes several times a day. Right. So it was like, never talked to Alex Goldman, but Akash was like, well, let's the only fun thing that ever happens at this job. That's so weird and sweet. It's so the decision making of like someone in their late teens where you're just like, I don't know. Yeah. And he told me right around that time, it was getting more and more stressful to work there because the bosses were really breathing down there next to bring in tons of money every day. There was an office sales goal.

So 10,000 was a target. At least we had to make it. Wow. 10,000 a day. That's a lot. $10,000 a day is a lot, Alex, it's a lot. What happened if you didn't make $10,000 a day? What would they do?

We knew it like at the end of the day, you know, the administrator is going to come and he's going to yell at us like, we're not cracking sales. And we used to get ultimatums that you might be getting notice period. You have to improve the performance. I got used to it after a few times, after getting it for a few times. got used to it. Did people, was there like a lot of yelling from the bosses? Did they come out and berate you a lot? Or was it only? Initially, there was not. Initially, there was not because it was really good times in the initial times. Like, we're making good sales and later on things got worse. The people that they were calling were just starting to get wise to the whole tech support scam.

And that actually brought out scam baiters, people who like try and tie up the line for as long as possible. And so Akash and his coworkers were having a lot of trouble hitting their daily goals. And their bosses in turn were getting way more stressed out. And according to Akash, they actually started to get violent with people who worked there. I'll tell you something. It was my third month in that place, right? I saw somebody being trashed on the floor from the bosses. Oh my God. And he was thrashing that guy so bad. And that actually terrified me so badly. He I was like, damn, I got to leave this shit as soon as possible. What did everybody else in the room do when this was happening?

Did anyone try to help him? Did anybody do anything? No, no, no, no, no, no. Everybody was just taking their ass on the chair. Because obviously, everybody was scared of the same thing happening to them. So nobody just raised a voice against it, and I was really, I was hella scared. Akash says he wanted to quit, but he rationalized his choice to stay, partly because of how payment at Acostings worked,

because he would get his paycheck on the 7th of every month, but he would get his commissions 10 days later. So if he quits right after he gets his paycheck, he doesn't get his commissions. And if he quits after he gets his commissions, he loses all the money he made in the last 10 days. And then, Akash says, like, the decision was basically made for him

because his rumor started about him, which is a rumor that he denies, that he was trying to steal contacts from Akostings to start his own company. And when Akash told me this, it made me realize that one of the most memorable, weirdest things that happened in India, I'd completely misunderstood. So at one point while I was in India, I met up for dinner with Kamal and the boss of a

costing guy named Deepak. And Deepak was a very imposing and frightening guy. And basically everything that he said to me the whole time we were there, I think he was lying. But at one point during our dinner, he like, we were asking him about the call center and we asking him about Alex Martin, and he, like, lifted his hand up and he was like, do you see this? And he had like this like bruise on his pinky. He was like, he said, fuck him.

I got that from smacking him because he tried to steal from us. Yeah. And I figured he was just trying to scare me. Yeah. But like after the episode came out, I spoke to someone who worked at Akosings who said they heard that Akash really was beaten up. Wow. And when I asked Akash about it, he confirmed it. But he didn't want to go into detail.

All that I will say is that hit is a very small. Okay. Oh, I'm really sorry. So, Akash left that job three years ago. He heard the original long-distance episodes, but he didn't reach out to tell us what he knew because he was still really scared of the Acostings people. Even just to, like, arrange our first phone call

took a lot of back and forth. Because he knew that, like, by deciding to talk to me, he might be putting himself at risk. But eventually, he decided that it was worth it, even if it meant that he was going to be looking over his shoulder for a little while. If they do listen to this, they might laugh at it, that I'm so scared of them, but yes, that's all right, no problem. So you have, you have concerns that if they hear this, they might, that, that you're slightly

definitely they will not like it. Definitely they will not like it. But here, whatever I'm saying, I want you to put this in recording, especially what I'm going to say now, that whatever I'm saying is true, okay, there's nothing wrong that I have mentioned in here. And if it is hurting you, it is because it is wrong and you know it. It's better you just leave that shit and do something good with all money that you got. It's been about three years since Akash left at Costings. And fortunately, it sounds like he's in a pretty good place right now. I mean, he teaches classes about hacking and cybersecurity.

And he actually even tried making an episode of his own podcast. Hackers are inevitable. Security is a delusion. An attack is a surprise. The attacker likes it and the victim doesn't. It's funny that he has ended up at this point in his journey having a job that is more like yours than it was when he started? Yes.

I feel like what you've ended up with is such a perfect, like, internet relationship story because it's like you met this person, it was really exciting, but you were like projecting pretty wildly onto them. and then like you meet them in person, it's disappointing. You like know that some of the things they're telling you are true. Some of them might not be. It just sort of lives in this weird space between real and not real that feels actually really familiar to me.

I mean, that, yes, that is exactly what it feels like. He did say a few months back before the coronavirus stuff set in in earnest. Did he invite you to India? No, he said that. he was actually coming to Sacramento to do a talk. And I was like, well, we should meet up. The talk got canceled. But, you know, if they're going to fly to California to see him?

Yeah. Are you implying that I've learned nothing? I just think the human heart is resilient and adorable. Reply all is hosted by PJ Vote and me, Alex Goldman. The show is produced by Shruthy Pinnameneity, Fia Benin, Damiano Marquetti, Anna Foley, Jessica Young and Emmanuel Jochi. Our executive producer is Tim Howard. We were mixed by Rick Kwan.

Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our intern is Lisa Wang. Additional music production by Mario Romano. Special thanks this week to Snigda Punum, Neep scam baiting, all the Akasings employees who talked to me for this story, and Catalina Grigorous and Cole White Cotton from the National Center of Media Forensics

at the University of Colorado, Denver. Our theme song is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Matt Lieber is a cool breeze on a humid day. You can listen to our show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you in two weeks.