3 horror stories: Heading crooks off at the pass
November 25, 2008 by Carol KatarskyPosted in: Best practices, Communication, Fraud prevention, Hiring & training staff, Special report
No matter how strong your controls or how much thought goes into hiring, eventually someone will try to scam your company.
Think it can’t happen at your company? We asked readers to share some of their experiences to show just how brazen — and outright stupid — some of the cons are.
For example, “Payroll girl” recently noted that an employee used a company account with the local grocery store to purchase everything from dog food to beer, as well as gift cards to other stores. The real kicker: When the employee was confronted and fired, he asked for time to finish the employer-provided breakfast.
Pattie Finn related a story of a worker who tried to pass off beer purchases as a legitimate expense for a children’s residential care program.
Pretty brazen, but perhaps not creative as the employee Dana Campbell says tried to get reimbursed for tires for his personal car — even though the company provided a business vehicle.
What goes through the minds of these would-be crooks? Hard to say. But the good news is that they all got caught. Vigilant Accounting pros, strong internal controls and support from upper management are keys to quickly finding — and stopping — any would-be scammers from getting the best of your company.
The most vulnerable areas will depend on your company, industry and general practices. But for the most part, you’ll want to keep a closer eye on:
- any check-writing functions (vendor, payroll or employee reimbursements & benefits)
- corporate credit or purchasing cards, and
- petty cash.
Not only are those the places where theft is most often attempted — it’s where it’s costliest, too. No doubt you already have solid controls in place — especially on those functions. But it’s worth doing a regular review of controls and procedures — as well as mini-audits — throughout the year.
Constantly reviewing your procedures is the only way to stay ahead of would-be thieves.
Have you encountered an attempted fraud at your company? Tell us what they tried — and how you discovered it.
Tags: Best practices, Communication, Controls, Fraud prevention
Loading ...
November 26th, 2008 at 10:24 am
We had an ex-employee that abused a trade restaurant – going every day to feed her entire family. She also had her car worked on and billed to the company without permission. When confronted, she said that several people at work had told her she needed to have someone fix her car, and she took that as authorization to have it done on the company.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
A lady who did the accounting for a small firm gave herself a big pay raise. Since her boss signed the checks, she increased her withholding to reduce the amount of the check to the same as before and the boss didn’t notice.
I caught this when doing their W2s for the year and became curious as the the increase. I found out she had been doing it for over a year and was getting a whopping refund at the year end.