Employee fraud usually involves the stealing of firm assets. Employee fraud is a significant problem faced by organizations of all types, sizes, locations and industries. While we would all like to believe our employees are loyal and working for the benefit of the organization Posted by Stephen, et al (2015)
Internal or employee frauds are when fraud is committed against the company or organisation a person is working for.
Internal frauds can include:
• payment fraud
• procurement fraud
• travel and subsistence fraud
• personnel management
• exploiting assets and information
• receipt fraud
Payment fraud is any fraud that involves falsely creating or diverting payments.
Payment fraud can include:
• creating bogus customer records and bank accounts so that false payments can be generated
• intercepting and altering payee details and amounts on cheques and Payable Orders, then attempting to cash them
• creating false payment and financial information to support fraudulent claims for benefits
• processing false claims by accomplices for benefits, grants or repayments
• self authorising payments to oneself.
If fraud has been committed, report it to Action Fraud.
Procurement fraud
Procurement fraud is any fraud relating to a company purchasing goods, services or commissioning construction projects from third parties.
Fraud can happen when the tender process has not been followed so that fraud can be committed, or when there is bid rigging. It can also happen when there are payment claims for goods or services that were not delivered or were inferior to what was specified in the order.
If fraud has been committed, report it to Action Fraud.
Travel and subsistence fraud
Fraud relating to travel and subsistence happen when employees of a company claim for travel or subsistence expenses that are not owed.
Travel and subsistence fraud can include claims for journeys that were not made, false client entertainment claims, claims for amounts higher than that spent, forged signatures authorising payment and unauthorised amendments to timesheets. Also known as Accounting fraud.
Personnel management fraud
Personnel management fraud can include a number of different scenarios in the workplace.
Examples of personnel management fraud include:
• staff on sick leave but working elsewhere
• abuses of flexible working time systems
• misuse of official time, eg abusing a company’s computer misuse policy
• deceit or misrepresentation for the employee’s advantage, eg false references or false qualifications used to secure employment.
Exploiting assets and information
This is when assets of an organisation are used for unofficial purposes.
Fraud relating to exploiting assets and information can include those who supply information to outsiders for personal gain.
This type of fraud does not include theft from a company by insiders, such as stealing stationary.
If fraud has been committed, report it to Action Fraud.
See also:
Internal fraud
Insider information
Corporate fraud
Receipt fraud
Receipt fraud is often fraud committed by a company’s employees.
It could happen when incoming cash or cheques are stolen, or when the records of the amounts owed by customers are adjusted in return for cash rewards or other incentives.
If fraud has been committed, report it to Action Fraud.
See also:
Internal fraud
False accounting fraud
Personnel management