How to commit fraud and get away with it
My latest installment of The Fraud Files, my column in the Wisconsin Law Journal, is my tongue-in-cheek look at some of the clues employees leave behind when they commit workplace fraud. “How To Commit Fraud and Get Away With It” demonstrates some signals that fraud may be occurring. Unfortunately, a lot of managers and business owners don’t pick up on these signs. If they did, they could simply monitor that employee a little more closely.
The article details some suspicious behavior, which includes acting disgruntled, not following the rules, and showing yourself to be generally dishonest. One of the more common red flags we see is the employee who has a change in lifestyle:
By all means, do not show up at work with an expensive item purchased with the proceeds of your fraud. Your managers know how much money you make. If you start flashing around expensive possessions that don’t “fit” with your salary, they will start to get suspicious. Don’t use the “I-got-an-inheritance” excuse either. No one will really believe it.
Other red flags include failure to cooperate with management or the auditors. Employees sometimes give themselves away when they steal too much at once or enter nice round numbers into the accounting system:
I’ve always said that if you’re going to risk going to prison, you better make it worth it. However, if you want to successfully steal large sums of money, you’ve got to do it in small increments. Theft of large, round dollar amounts might look suspicious.
How often does your company write out a check for $100,000? Probably not very often. Even in large companies, it may be unusual to write a check of this size for a nice, round dollar amount. Instead, you’ve got to break it up into smaller amounts, and make sure that you’re using odd dollars and cents, so as not to draw any attention to your transactions.
You should also try to find out what dollar amount the auditors use as their “scope.” The auditors usually won’t look at any transactions below that amount, so you can use that as a gauge for your theft. Just make sure that you steal amounts below the auditor scope and you can rest easy knowing that the auditors won’t scrutinize those items.
Management should make themselves aware of some of the more common signs of fraud, and monitor employees accordingly.
Related posts:
Trackback from your site.
