Category: Risk Management

Like the coronavirus (COVID-19) pathogen itself, incidents of COVID-19 fraud are surging and financial losses are piling up. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that the number of 2020 COVID-19-related complaints doubled in just one recent week. As of March 31, losses...

As governments around the globe mobilize to defend their populations from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), criminals are also mobilizing — to fleece people. These opportunists have already found ways to use the fear and chaos associated with the pandemic to enrich themsel...

Most companies wouldn’t go into business without some basic types of insurance in place, such as property coverage and a liability policy. For a company with more than one owner, there’s an additional type of risk-management arrangement that needs to be established: a bu...

Businesses and fraud experts often face a long, arduous process when investigating any occupational fraud incident.  When your company's fraud suspect is an executive or a member of upper management, it’s exponentially harder....

“All complaints will be swiftly and thoroughly investigated.” No doubt this sentence, or something similar, appears in your company’s employee handbook. Unfortunately, there will likely be a time when you’ll have to put those words into action. Whether an employee al...

You may already know how CPAs can help businesses uncover and prevent fraud. But what about when a fraud incident leads to civil litigation? An experienced CPA can help your legal team collect and summarize complex financial documents and reconstruct lost or stolen records. ...

At many companies, a wide gap exists between the budgeting process and risk management. Failing to consider major threats could leave you vulnerable to high-impact hits to your budget if one or more of these dangers materialize. Here are some common types of risks to researc...

The U.S. economy depends on import and export markets to run as designed. After all, revenue from trade tariffs and duties contribute $30 billion annually to federal government coffers. Unfortunately, fraud regularly throws a wrench in the works of global trade, and individ...

Lapping schemes are one of the most common ways crooked employees skim money from their employers. In these schemes, a perpetrator uses receipts from one account to cover theft from another. Here’s what lapping looks like and how you can help prevent it....

Benford’s Law is a long-standing statistical precept that remains as relevant and widely accepted in fighting fraud as ever. By wielding it effectively, experts can cut down fraudsters who unknowingly reveal their wrongdoings in dubious digits. The rule is named for Frank ...

The Web has opened plenty of new avenues for criminal behavior. For example, you may have heard of cybersquatting. Someone registers a site’s domain name that includes a trademark and then tries to profit by selling that name to the trademark owner. But are you familiar w...

Hidden assets can be an issue in a variety of contexts — from divorce to bankruptcy to fraud. An acrimonious divorce, ownership dispute or occupational theft incident could all lead an individual or business to wrongfully hide items of value. In such cases, fraud experts u...