‘Detection Fraud’ Articles

Businesses often make fraud training boring! And that’s bad for their bottom line, because no one ends up remembering anything about the subject.

Too often, fraud and social engineering workshops cover just the concepts that define fraud rather than the feelings that signal it’s happening. The key to training your executives, employees and even customers on fraud is to let them experience what it feels like to be conned. In other words, they need to actually be socially engineered (manipulated into giving away their own private information) several times throughout the training so that they begin to reflexively sense fraud as it is happening. Like learning to throw a ball, there is no substitute for doing it for yourself. Fraud detection is similar; it takes actually doing it (or having it done to you) to fully understand the warning signs. Anything less will leave your audience yawning and uneducated.

This social engineering video was recorded at a fraud training I did recently for the Department of Defense, and it demonstrates how fun it can be to train someone on detecting fraud, and how profitable. As silly as it might seem, the skills necessary to detect fraud can be taught in very entertaining and engaging ways. After watching the video, take a minute to understand the basic skills your employees and executives will need to Stop Fraud:

Detection: Fraud and Identity Theft.

“Consumers are spending considerably more time on fraud Resolution, up to an average of 30 hours in 2008. This increase may be attributed to the increased sophistication of fraud schemes.”
-    2009 Identity Fraud Survey Report, Javelin Strategy & Research

Most cases of identity theft are discovered by the victim, which reinforces the importance of monitoring your various accounts for suspicious behavior. Here are a few of the most common warning signs for the detection of fraud, identity theft or data breach:

The Top 15 Ways Victims Detect Identity Theft

1. You receive a data breach notice in the mail from a company you do business with.
2. Your bills or statements are not arriving in your mail (or email) on time.
3. You notice unauthorized charges on your credit card bill or debit card statement.
4. You notice new accounts or erroneous information on your credit report.
5. You are denied credit for a purchase.
6. You receive credit card bills for cards you don’t own.
7. You are contacted by a collection agency about an item you didn’t purchase.
8. You receive bills for unknown purchases, rental agreements or services.
9. Businesses won’t accept your check or credit card.
10. You are unable to set up new banking, loan or brokerage accounts.