Fraud: Don’t let them in

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It’s easy to become the victim of fraud both from within and from external parties, says Adam Bernstein, and companies must be aware of the risks and mitigations. Ensignbus was the victim of a ticket payment fraud in 2022 using Apple Pay and Google Pay. RAY WARD

Adam Bernstein considers how fraud can affect businesses, and warns that the public transport sector is not immune

Hardly a day goes by without a warning or headline about scams. Employee frauds, push payment, or errant suppliers short-changing customers – the level of activity is rising, despite the actions of authorities to stamp out the problem. A lot of focus recently has been on fraudulent activity committed against individuals. In its November 2022 report ‘Fighting Fraud: Breaking the Chain,’ the House of Lords Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee said that in the previous 13-month period, 89% of fraud victims were individuals rather than organisations or businesses.

But having said that, Andrew Northage, a partner in the regulatory and compliance team at Walker Morris still considers fraud to be a significant threat in corporate environments. He cites the UK findings of PwC’s ‘Global Economic Crime Survey 2022’ which “showed that 64% of businesses had experienced fraud, corruption or other economic/financial crime in the previous two years, up quite significantly from 56% in 2020.”

David Kearns, Managing Director of Expert Investigations, considers fraud to be prevalent in all business sectors: “In 23 years of investigating employee dishonesty [it’s affected] all sectors, including manufacturing, services sector, professional services, utilities, transport and logistics, and healthcare.”

He adds that, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) ‘Report to Nation 2022,’ a worldwide report based on asset misappropriation fraud, “we do not know how prevalent fraud is as so much is undiscovered, unreported and so not investigated.”

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