[r_singh]

I see a lot of comments here attributing outsourcing firms to fraud. Let's remember that these cos. win contracts fair and square by taking advantage of myopic tendering processes.

If there's something to blame then it's obsolete tender process that make it impossible for quality vendors to compete or for outsourcing firms to make realising proposals.

Overpromising and underdelivering is not fraud. Fraud is what VW, FB and Theranos and the likes have done.

[hc91]

Dude, you are obviously biased and try to portray the "pure play" companies in a positive light. Stop it, you are not fooling anyone. Stop defending them, those companies are the literal cancer of the software engineering world from the most literal point of view and the people in this thread talking bad things about them are doing that because they have very good reasons to.

[r_singh]

No. I say this again, their work sucks. And their customers are fools to hire them. Their customers' shortsightedness and greed is the cause of this cancer.

I just think it’s not fair to accuse them of fraud.

[hereiskkb]

> Overpromising and underdelivering is not fraud.

It is. That's like saying selling a Merc with a Suzuki Swift engine inside is not fraud.

[sumedh]

Is it fraud or is it incompetence?

[r_singh]

Or selling a VW clean emission free vehicle with a cheating device.

[bhouston]

One of the issues creating poor impressions of Indians at least in Canada nearly every resident gets a fairly regular stream of calls from Pakistan and India that are actually fraud, dealing with IT and credit cards, duct cleaning and taxes.

I think India is a challenging place to make a living and thus many people do whatever they can to make a buck, at least that is how I explain this behavior to myself.

[r_singh]

That’s true, I get a lot of fraud calls from India too.

It’s lack of regulation, funds and a lot of other things.

You’re right though, it’s going to affect reputation for sure. Not like it’s going to make the bad actors mindful, because as you suggest, it’s survival that’s on their mind.

[desi_ninja]

still doesn't make stereotyping right

[TeMPOraL]

If there's a knowingly broken process, both sides of it are to blame. One party for using a broken process, the other for exploiting it.

Imagine you own a store with broken locks. A thief learns of that, and comes one night, and plunders your store. Yes, you'd be to blame for being irresponsible and stupid. But the thief would still be liable for theft.

[r_singh]

By this example, fraud is rampant across business[1], not just outsourcing.

Facebook, VW, Theranos and many many more.

[TeMPOraL]

Never said it isn't. Big and small. The amount of shit I've experienced myself, or had reported to me by friends and acquaintances is so large that I have a very low starting opinion on small businesses on things not strongly enforced by law. I've shared some more egregious examples on HN a few times, like a practice in grocery stores to wash stale meat with dish cleaner to be able to sell it as fresh. Yes, fraud is very much rampant across business.

[hereiskkb]

Yep. It is. Fraud across the spectrum.

[nullc]

If you knowingly misrepresent a material fact for the purpose of inducing someone to act (E.g. give you money), then you have committed fraud. This is literally the definition of fraud.

Maybe in the your household blaming the victim when they hire a company with such a well known track-record of failing to deliver is acceptable, but many people have different values.

[peteradio]

Are you being hired to apologize for these shitty consulting giants? Up and down this thread like its your job.

[r_singh]

Hmm, not at all.

It’s a different matter that I don’t think very highly of them.

I just don’t think it’s fair to accuse them of fraud. W/o considering the fact that they’re from a country with a lot less resources competing for contracts that perfectly competent people reward to them.