The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) recently published an interesting piece on r?sum? [tag]fraud[/tag]. I have always been amazed how often in my [tag]fraud examination[/tag] practice I’ve found that perpetrators of fraud also lied on their r?sum?s. I’m not so amazed that they lied, rather that the employer didn’t verify the r?sum? before hiring the person.

Believe it or not, it is quite easy to purchase a fake degree and a fake set of transcripts. The ACFE research staff cites a price of $295 to purchase a Juris Doctorate from Yale!

Research suggests that 40% of r?sum?s contain lies, and only a small number of these will be detected prior to hiring. With the increase in degree mills, this number could easily grow.

ACFE cites a few newsworthy incidents of r?sum? fraud:

• In 2001, Notre Dame.s head football coach, George O.Leary, was fired following evidence that he lied on his r?sum? about having a master.s degree from New York University, and having played football for the University of New Hampshire.
• In 2001, the Boston Globe revealed that Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Joseph Ellis, had exaggerated his involvement in the Vietnam War. He was suspended from his teaching position at Mount Holyoke for the following year.
• In 2002, Veritas Software announced that its executive vice president and CFO, Kenneth Lonchar, left the company following evidence that he did not have an MBA from Stanford University, contrary to what his r?sum? stated.
• In 2002, Charles Harris, the athletic director at Dartmouth University, suddenly resigned after it was found that he did not have a master.s degree from the University of Michigan, contrary to what his r?sum? stated.
• In 2002, the president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Sandra Baldwin, admitted to lying about having a PhD in American literature from Arizona State University.

Tomorrow I’ll discuss some tips ACFE gives for detecting and preventing r?sum? fraud.