The Problem Of Fraud And Its Effects On Society

In today's day and age sales workers are taught to lie and cheat to get a good price. Also studies show, greed is closely related to envy, they’re the evil step sisters of life. That same study shows, almost everyone in today’s society show traces of greed. Greed has an impact of destruction of relationships, and most times leads to loneliness. Greed seems to be a common motive of fraud. Fraud is the “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain”. Also executives of big companies have a goal to rip you off, to make the maximum amount of money

The art of deception played a key role in fooling customers. The “ordinary people” at the New York City law firms were bound by an oath to abide a rigorous code of ethics (Callahan 33). Though these lawyers dealt with legal affairs of America’s largest companies, they were faced with not meeting year end billing requirements. In the most desperate cases of being downsized, lawyers turned to padding their hours by simply making up the numbers. They rounded up their hours and added in miscellaneous hours which was described as the “new math” (Callahan 39). “Let me tell you how you will start acting unethically…One

Embezzlement seems to be a white collar crime that is victimless. However, when monies are embezzled from a non profit it affects all those involved especially those benefitting from the work of the nonprofit organization. I thought of our local community nonprofit arts foundation. They not only produce a full slate of shows each season, but also provide classes in painting, sculpting, drawing, acting, music, and dance. If they were defrauded in the amount of $93,000 it would affect educational programs and community outreach.

The amount listed is the enrollment agreement was 10,020.00 which gives a difference of :

(TCO 5) Fraud is an intentional misrepresentation of facts, made for the purpose of persuading another party to act in a way that causes injury or damage to that party. In our readings and discussions we have seen several examples of fraud in business. Using that experience (1) provide an example of a common fraudulent practice in business with an explanation of how the practice works and (2) name and describe each of the elements of the Fraud Triangle.

Internal fraud consists in “a type of fraud that is committed by an individual against an organization. [Furthermore], a perpetrator of fraud engages in activities that are designed to defraud, misappropriate property, or circumvent the regulations, law, or policies of a company”[8]. Not only has the incidence of internal fraud increased in frequency because of the availability of sensitive information such as client details or confidential business documents; moreover, this type of fraud is found in various types of organizations, ranging from corporations, public service institutions and financial institutions. Our analysis will concentrate on the most common and prolific types of internal fraud, namely identity theft, insider trading, loan fraud and wire fraud. Interestingly, PriceWaterhouseCooper conducted a survey that revealed that the “demographics of a typical fraudster are as follows: males (85% of cases), 31-50 years (72% of cases), reached high-school level (50%), Bachelor’s or post graduate degree (50%) and middle or senior management (52%)”[9].

On August 25th 2015 Co-Founder of OXYwater Preston J. Harrison and his Wife Lovena Harrison were sentenced for Wire Fraud, Money Laundering and Tax Crimes. (Investor Claims, August 2015). I chose this case because it has many different types of fraud, including wire fraud, money laundering, and tax fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, concealment of fraud, theft and misappropriation of funds. What makes this case so interesting is that the husband and wife co-owners of OXYwater are not the only criminals. Their co-conspirator was Thomas E. Jackson;

In fraud committed against organizations, the victim of fraud is the employee’s organization. In frauds committed on behalf of an organization, executives usually are involved in some type of financial statement fraud; typically, to make the company’s reported financial results appear better than they actually are. In this second case, the victims are investors in the company’s stock. A third way to classify frauds is via the use of the ACFE’s occupational fraud definition, “the use of one’s occupation for personnel enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets” (ACFE, 2010). The ACFE includes three major categories of occupational fraud: asset misappropriations involves the theft or misuse of the organization’s assets, corruption involves the wrongful use of influence in a business transaction in order to procure benefits contrary to their duty to their employer, and fraudulent financial statements involving falsification of an organization’s financial statements for personal gain.

According to Daniel F. Dooley (2008), a member of the Commercial Fraud Taskforce, financial fraud with private middle-market companies is on the rise. In fact, Mr. Dooley believes that he has seen more instances of fraud in the past two years than in the previous ten. He notes seven areas in which financial fraud has increased over the past few years:

Some industry-specific factors, such as having valuable near-cash assets, can increase the organization's vulnerability. Also they will need to rationalize the actions as justifiable. The individuals committing the fraud must first convince themselves that their behavior is acceptable or will be temporary. For example, Barry Minkow’s believed that the lies and deceit are for the betterment of his company and that with time everything will eventually return to normal.

Combating fraud in the private sector is a difficult task. Trying to combat fraud in the public sector is daunting. In 1999 15.7% of the American workforce were employed by a government entity (federal, state, and local).[1] Mirroring society, government will have its share of perpetrators. The difference from the private sector is in the scope of the fraud committed, the loss of the public trust, the blaring headlines from news media, and difficulty in making necessary changes to combat the problems.

Fraud is defined as a deliberate misrepresentation that causes a person or business to suffer damages, often in the form of monetary losses through deception or concealment. And Occupational Fraud as defined by the ACFE is the use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets. Traditional fraud triangle theory by Donald Cressey explains that propensity of fraud occurring in an organization lies on three critical elements which are Pressure, Opportunity, and Rationalization.

Morrinson and Robinson (1997) also proposed a theoretical model, which highlights several conditions that contributes to the perception of a breach in psychological contract. Their proposal shows reneging and incongruence as the main causes of a perceived psychological contract breach.

The perfect fraud storm occurred between the years 2000 and 2002 involving two of the largest energy and telecom corporations in the United States: Enron and WorldCom. It was determined that both organizations fraudulently overstated assets, created assets from expenses or overstated revenues, costing investors billions of dollars and resulting in both organizations declaring bankruptcy (Albrecht, Albrecht, Albrecht & Zimbelman, 2012). Nine factors contributed to fraud triangle creating this perfect fraud storm, and assisting management in concealing the fraud until exposed and rectified.

A business can not work out without an account system, which includes internal. Internal controls are used by companies to make sure financial information is accurate and valid. Strong internal controls are signs of a financially healthy company and protect the company’s integrity. Strong internal controls can also increase a company’s profitability. There are several types of internal controls that companies used to protect themselves such as: Segregation of duties, asset purchases, supervisor review, internal audits and adequate documents and records. This paper will discuss several topics from a case study about And the Fraud