Fraud
seems to be nearly everywhere in today’s society. As scary as it may be, it is becoming easier
and easier for fraudsters to develop schemes due to today’s technology. According to Teal, Becker & Chiaramonte,
the average business loses about 5% of its annual revenues to occupational
fraud. The 2002 Report to the Nation on
Occupational Fraud and Abuse defines occupational fraud as “the use of one’s
occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or
misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets” (Journal of Accountancy). In an effort to catch fraudsters, the
investigators (whether they are the company or an outside auditor) need to use
technology to find the fraud taking place.
There
are many websites available for fraudsters to scheme a fraud. There are websites that offer:
- Resumes
- IDs
- Alibis
- Doctors Slips
- Receipts
- Fake Websites
These
websites, and their related services, can help people in claiming illegitimate
expenses, charitable donations to be used as tax write-offs, insurance claims,
hide unflattering employment history, hide personal records, etc. The services out there are astonishing and
somehow are legal!
Some
of these fraudster websites are:
- www.careerexcuse.com
- www.alibinetwork.com
- www.fakeiduk.com
- www.fakepaystubonline.com
- www.paladindeception.com
- www.tradeshift.com
- www.mashable.com
- www.namorofakecanada.com
These
websites range from fake resumes, fakes IDs, fake significant others, fake
invoices, fake phone numbers, fake emails, fake prior employers, fake
paychecks, fake receipts, and more. This
is crazy! There are websites all over
the internet offering these services for fake documents and references. With all of these ways to create false
information, auditors have to pay attention to all of the details of the
invoices and expenses that they see.
With
today’s technology, there are even online pages which teach you how to hack
into other websites. There are also
pages that will also teach people how to create fake web pages. This could severely hurt companies if fraudsters
are creating fake web pages using their name.
The website www.archive.org allows
investigators to see the website history and how far back the website
goes.
There
are many ways in which technology can help fraud investigators catch
fraudsters: data analytics, audit
trails, and metadata. Data analytics
include inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of
discovering useful information (Wikipedia). Audit trails can be uncovered using today’s
advanced accounting programs. Metadata
is hidden information in electronic files.
