The Best Frauds Ever

Eric Krell June 18th, 2009

Kudos to the creative minds at Oversight Systems who developed a Web site that “awards” truly amazing instances of corporate fraud.

The tales are by turns juicy, ridiculous, depressing, and instructive (from a fraud management and prevention perspective): “This leading man used a corporate card to make over $4,000 in purchases from Victoria’s Secret,” reads the entry for one award. “The soft-hearted romantic was caught cheating by his company and then subsequently busted for two-timing his wife.”

Ouch.

Other awards honor fraudsters who:

• Rang up over $3,400 in charges to a psychic hotline on a company credit card;

• Used his company card to book his family of five on a $40,000 Mediterranean cruise; and

• Purchased international airline tickets on his credit card, filed for reimbursement from his company, exchanged those tickets for airline credit, and then (deep breath) sold the airline credit on eBay.

There are many more … ###

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2 Comments to “The Best Frauds Ever”

1. Steve Dallas Says:
   

   June 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 am

   this shows that the perpetrators are probably always going to do this and no amount of creative controls will prevent them (though reviews can catch after the fact). more effort is needed to focus on the causes of this type of fraud.

   great piece on web about why people do this
   http://audit.finance.toolbox.com/research/preempting-the-risk-of-compliance-failures-five-leading-indicators-of-misconduct-19664

2. Rakesh Shukla Says:
   

   June 30th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

   Fraud is definitely on the uptick.

   With the unemployment rate at its highest level in over three decades, it is clear that companies are simply trying to survive by cutting expenses and laying off workers. Individuals whose homes are declining in value and whose retirement assets have been wiped out are also trying to survive. Many are becoming desperate. It is not surprising that occupational fraud is increasing. It’s a vicious cycle where losing valuable assets to fraud may push a struggling company perilously close to insolvency which, in turn, increases the risk of fraud.

   In a recent Special report on Occupational Fraud by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), more than half of the Certified Fraud Examiners (CFE) surveyed said the frequency and dollar amount of fraud is increasing.

   Managing risk and especially managing the risk of AP Fraud has become a top priority.

   More here:
   http://blog.170systems.com/bid/9726/Father-s-Day-Crash-Managing-Risk-with-AP-Automation

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