The Examiner – Insights on Fighting Financial Fraud

The Examiner blog is a tool developed to help fight fraud by reminding people that fraud is a risk and providing useful tips to help prevent, discover, and investigate it. HORNE also has the HORNE Cyber blog. Fighting fraud and cybercrime have numerous similarities, some of which are included below:

Next week I will be presenting at a conference to a group who fight fraud every day. They focus on evaluating insurance claims for potential fraud. This conference provides them the opportunity to sharpen their saws and collaborate with others.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This statement was from one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, who was speaking about fighting fires. But he could have been talking about the Oscars Sunday night and the internal controls that PwC had in place to ensure that the proper winners were announced.

Numerous organizations simply check the box when it comes to implementing a hotline without focusing on the hotline’s effectiveness. This can be even more detrimental to the culture of an organization than not having a hotline at all. An effective hotline can bring your organization tips that can help your organization identify and mitigate fraud.

We know that tips are one of the best sources for detecting fraud and that hotlines are a great way to capture tips. If that’s the case, then why do companies often choose not to have hotlines? In victim organizations, the organizations with greater than 100 employees had hotlines in 74% of the cases, and for the smaller organizations, hotlines were only present in 25% of the cases. This is staggering because the implementation and management costs are minimal and the benefit of discovering fraud is huge.

If you didn’t watch the game this past Sunday, you probably heard about it. The Patriots pulled off the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. I am not about to rehash a discussion about the Super Bowl, but I do want to talk about the whistleblowers—the referee and other officials who make sure everyone follows the rules of the game. The crew officiating this year’s Super Bowl received an “A” for a job well done.[1]

In our daily lives, we trade tips with other people all the time. Every so often, I receive a tip from a friend about a new restaurant and we discuss his dining experience. If positive, I might be encouraged to try it out, but if it was a negative experience, I will take heed and stay away. And, just as I receive tips, I also provide them. But tips are only helpful if we choose to use them—which brings me to last week’s blog.

Most will agree that fraud costs businesses a lot of money, but there are many business owners and executives who don’t believe fraud is a real risk to their organization. And for those who may see fraud as a risk, it is likely that they underestimate the potential dollar impact. Why do people ignore or underestimate the risk of fraud?

I listened to my first podcast about two weeks ago, and it was very informative. Just like that, I was hooked! Podcasts have replaced my audiobooks when driving and my music when running. They help me grow to be a better person. I am not sure what took me so long to join the podcast world.

I gained a lot of weight over the past few months, and I weigh more than ever before. All my clothes are tight—which isn’t funny. But it is pretty funny when my kids pat or rub on my belly. Seriously, it is time to lose some of this weight. I have started dieting and exercising more frequently. I don’t have a problem exercising, but I suck at dieting. I know that I am not the only one in this boat. Why is it so hard? I need to eat better foods and less of them, but it is so difficult.