Question

What additional or meaningful response do you have on this student's paragraph below about characteristics of a person likely to perpetrate a large fraud, debated his decision over person with these characteristics, and gave reasons why a person is likely to be a fraud perpetrator than person with different characteristics? This is based on Chapter 14 in the textbook called "Fraud Examination" by Steve Albrecht.

The characteristics of the person most likely to perpetrate a large fraud are the following: Age: Based on the fraud statistics, the offender is commonly between the age of 31-45. On the other hand, median losses involving fraudsters over the age of 60 are two times higher than for other age groups. Gender: The median loss of fraud perpetrated by males is nearly twice that of frauds committed by females. The difference may stem from males holding more management and executive-level positions, providing a greater opportunity to commit larger-dollar frauds. Education level: The higher percentage of the reported frauds were committed by individuals who attended or graduated from college. Position: The higher percent of frauds are committed by staff and managers. However, frauds committed by owners/executives are more than three times as costly as frauds committed by managers, and more than nine times as costly as employee frauds. Executive-level frauds also took much longer to detect. Departments: Fraud offenders are likely to be found in one of the following departments: accounting, operations, sales, executive/upper management, customer service or purchasing. The reason is that these departments have more opportunities for committing fraud. Tenure: Longer-term employees tended to commit larger frauds in terms of median losses per incident. Collusion: More than half of the cases reported involved only one perpetrator. However, when collusion occurred, the median loss increased with each additional perpetrator. That seems logical given that internal controls fail when employees are working together to perpetuate a scheme. Prior records: The average fraud perpetrator has no prior fraud charges or convictions. However, it doesn’t mean it's the fraudster’s first time committing this type of scheme. It's possible they weren’t caught the first time, that their previous employer chose not to take the matter to the authorities, or the prosecutor decided not to bring charges against the individual.

In addition, it is very common for people who are engaged in an occupational fraud scheme to display certain behavioral characteristics such as living beyond means, experiencing financial difficulties and exhibiting behavioral warning signs such as control issues or unwillingness to share responsibilities, irritability, suspiciousness, defensiveness, family problems, addictions, getting too close to vendors or customers, and wheeler-dealer attitude. Simply meeting the profile outlined above doesn’t mean that an individual is going to commit fraud, nor should someone who falls outside the profile be immune from suspicion. However, examining trends in the characteristics of fraudsters can provide context and perspective to those charged with identifying high-risk areas and individuals.

Answer 1

While there is one single parameter on which we can say that this person can make a fraud or can commit a fraud in the company but with the recent examples of big frauds committed we can see something common in fraudsters are that they belong to a highly profound position in the company who are directly related to the decision making role in the company. They had the indepth knowledge of the working of the organization and the internal secrets of the company. The fraudsters tend to appear as a highly reputed and respected and appears trustworthy who wants to work for different stakeholders of the company and for their betterment.