If you try to research fraud by millennials (those born between 1980 and 1994, currently 26-40 years old, also referred to as Gen Y), most everything you find will be about them being victims of fraud. It appears that millennials are the age group most likely to fall for financial scams, falling victim to consumer fraud twice as often as senior citizens.

But what about millennials as perpetrators of occupational fraud?

They’re at an age where they are moving into management, and may be at the beginnings of the executive ranks.

Wouldn’t it be important to know how likely this group is to commit fraud?

If you check out the 2020 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse by the ACFE, you will see that 45% of the frauds included in the survey were committed by milllennials. That’s a significant fact.

Do millennials commit fraud more often than other age groups?

It’s not a simple issue to sort out. The Report to the Nations is a SURVEY that asks CFEs to select one fraud they investigated and answer questions. CFEs choose which frauds are included in the survey, so the numbers aren’t a random sample that we can apply to the workforce in general.

So based on this alone, we don’t know if millennials commit no collar fraud at a higher rate. I’m going to be digging into that issue as I continue my research on the issue of fraud by millennials.

I’m calling white collar crime committed by millennials “no collar fraud” and using the hashtag #nocollarfraud on social media. Can you guess why?