Fraud is continuing to increase this year, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
The report found that 79 percent of anti-fraud professionals have seen an increase in the overall level of fraud as of November, compared to 77 percent in August and 68 percent in May. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents said in November the increase has been significant, compared to 34 percent in August and 25 percent in May.
Jeff Haskett is CEO and co-founder of Clarus R+D, a technology company that enables businesses to unlock the value of R&D tax credits for innovation and growth.
Kevin Dehner is EY Americas sustainability tax deputy leader. Based in Cincinnati, he recently returned to EY as a leader in the national sustainability tax practice with more than 23 years of diverse technical and client service experience including eight years as an external auditor and 15 years as tax practitioner working with audit and non-audit clients on public and private company external audits, complex tax accounting and reporting, restatements, tax processes and controls remediation, transaction-related tax matters, and international, federal and state local tax planning. He was previously a shareholder at Clark Schaeffer Hackett and an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati, where he developed and taught coursework on business ethics and sustainability.
Vishal Jain is the vice president of wellness strategy and development at Prudential.
Cyber fraud, payment fraud (such as schemes with debit and credit cards) and identity theft are the three top fraud schemes seeing increases, according to anti-fraud professionals.
The largest increase in observed fraud was in financial statement fraud, with 7 percent more anti-fraud professionals reported seeing financial statement fraud in November, compared to August. That could be because as companies continue to see their profits drop, they feel more pressure to cook the books.
The survey also found 77 percent of anti-fraud professionals report that investigating and preventing fraud is more challenging now, while 71 percent said detecting fraud is more challenging as a result of the pandemic.
ACFE members anticipate the fraud trend will continue, even as vaccines have begun rolling out this week in the U.S. Ninety percent of the survey respondents expect a further increase in the level of fraud over the next 12 months, with 44 percent predicting the change is likely to be significant.
Nearly half (48 percent) of the organizations polled expect to increase their investments in anti-fraud technology, and 38 percent intend to raise the use of fraud-related consultants or other external resources. Budgets for anti-fraud training and professional development are experiencing a similar increase (according to 37 percent of the organizations polled), but nearly one-quarter (24 percent) anticipate a decrease in this area. The budget component most likely to see decreases is travel for anti-fraud staff, which shouldn’t be surprising given the plunging levels of air travel in general over this past year, with 38 percent of the survey respondents expecting a reduction in funds for travel in the year ahead.
