At the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Conference
We had a great group at the ACFE preconference session on Sunday July 12. Thanks to all of you who attended my session, Fraud Prevention in Difficult Economic Times. More than 400 people turned out for this session, and it was great meeting many of you who participated.
As we discussed, being a fraud professional is vitally important at all times, but especially during times of economic hardship. Consider some of the following factors, all happening at the same time:
· More pressure at home when a spouse or other breadwinner loses a job or has a pay or benefits cut, or when the retirement savings has declined in value, or the home is now worth less than the mortgage balance.
· The credit markets, though easing, are not fully operational. Loans from banks and loans from credit cards may not be a viable option.
· Cut-backs at work have spread anti-fraud resources thinner, forcing us to do more with less, while simultaneously making it easier than ever for someone to rationalize an act of fraud against his or her employer.
How are these factors playing out in your organizations?
We’ll probably never run out of frauds to discuss, even when the economic crisis turns around. I think the important thing to remember is the importance of continually updating our fraud risk assessment in order to better prioritize where we focus our limited resources in the fight against fraud.