{"id":17043,"date":"2007-03-30T06:00:31","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=17043"},"modified":"2016-04-03T18:27:23","modified_gmt":"2016-04-03T23:27:23","slug":"thou-shall-not-steal-except-in-accounting-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/thou-shall-not-steal-except-in-accounting-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Thou Shall Not Steal \u2013 Except in Accounting Class"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Marquette students learn to detect fraud by thinking like crooks<\/em><\/p>\n

The Business Journal of Milwaukee
\n<\/em><\/strong>By Jennifer Batog<\/p>\n

In a nondescript room on the third floor of Marquette University\u2019s Straz Hall, a dozen students are learning how to steal.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re learning how embezzlers skim money from cash registers, how corporate thieves use fake purchase orders or inventory sheets to pocket money and how such criminals are caught.<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re students in Maureen Mascha\u2019s \u201cFraud Examination\u201d class in Marquette\u2019s College of Business Administration, which offers a different spin on the typical accounting class. Rather than relying on textbooks, the class focuses on real-life examples of how people managed to steal from their employers and how they eventually slipped up and were caught. The class hears from guest speakers with practical experience, such as a former FBI agent who now works as an investigator for a large accounting firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had an FBI speaker in an accounting class before,\u201d said student Noel Stuiber. \u201cIt\u2019s fun. It\u2019s not just fun learning how to steal, it\u2019s learning how you can prevent people from stealing that makes it interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraud classes are growing around the country in the wake of corporate scandals such as Enron. At least 300 schools around the world offer such classes, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

Marquette\u2019s accounting department offered the class for the first time in the spring 2006 semester. The first class attracted about 12 students. Because some of the work is done on computer, class size is limited to 20 to 25 students. It is open to graduate students and seniors who are pursuing graduate studies. It is an elective for people in the accounting masters and the MBA program.<\/p>\n

Corporate scandals
\n<\/strong>Fraud classes are new to the accounting curriculum, rising in the wake of the corporate scandals of the early 2000s. Before, such classes were taught in the criminology department, said Tracy Coenen, owner of Sequence Inc.<\/strong>, a Milwaukee firm which offers fraud-fighting and forensic accounting services.<\/p>\n

\u201cFraud is such a reality for companies,\u201d Coenen said. \u201cEven if you\u2019re a general accountant, it is important to have the knowledge. Maybe you\u2019ll be able to spot a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teaching future financial industry employees how to find and fight fraud is a sea change in accounting preparation. Most auditing classes teach students how to examine and verify financial statements, but little or no emphasis was placed on detecting fraud, said Marquette accounting department chair Mike Akers. Auditors simply weren\u2019t trained to look for theft, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our classes teach our students the right way to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey also need to understand the wrong way. So we wanted that additional exposure for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although some might cringe at the idea of teaching theft, the knowledge can be helpful to future accountants, whether they become general accountants or enter the emerging field of forensic accounting.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou teach people how to steal to teach them what to look for,\u201d Mascha said. \u201cMost people don\u2019t think, \u2018how would somebody rip me off.\u2019 Most people don\u2019t understand all the different ways there are of ripping off an employer.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there are many. Through case studies, computer programs, stories from Mascha and examples from guest speakers, students think through schemes such as forged check writing, financial statement fraud similar to the Enron case, payroll fraud, expense padding, setting up phony customers and taking the merchandise instead or how someone might use a computer to steal from the company and make things look legitimate. The students also work with and build auditing programs that use data mining to catch fraud. For example, most people who steal tend to steal in even amounts, taking $10,000, rather than $1,261.21. The computer programs will search for oddities in the numeric patterns, which can serve as red flags.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s much more situational than academic,\u201d said Marge Vanderbok, one of Mascha\u2019s students. \u201cWe\u2019re not just studying cases. We\u2019re talking about real people and the elements that got them caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skimming over time<\/strong>
\nOne assignment was to figure out ways to find cash theft using a computer program. For example, one way people steal cash is to skim over time, a sale that doesn\u2019t get rung up, voiding out sales or fake refunds where the thief takes the money instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really had to get in the mind of, \u2018what are the ways they could do it and how could you catch them,’\u201d Vanderbok said.<\/p>\n

The class also looks at motivations behind corporate theft. That was part of the discussion at a recent class that featured former FBI agent Michael Dyer, who now works for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago. Dyer gave students insight into a fraudulent mind. Fifty-five percent of such thieves are men; a third are 41 to 50 years old; they have a stable family life and an above-average education. They also likely had prior accounting experience or at least some knowledge of accounting systems. They often steal because they feel their employer owes them something \u2014 they didn\u2019t get a promotion they thought they deserved or a plum assignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to think like a thief,\u201d he told the students. \u201cYou have to think, \u2018what could they do.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marquette students learn to detect fraud by thinking like crooks The Business Journal of Milwaukee By Jennifer Batog In a nondescript room on the third floor of Marquette University\u2019s Straz Hall, a dozen students are learning how to steal. They\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,2777],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auditing-regulations","category-forensic-accountant"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-4qT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}