Fraud

The work-from-home phenomenon has triggered a fresh frustration for U.S. corporations: Americans are blowing the whistle on their employers like never before.

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 single-family house on Forestview Avenue in Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, shows no signs of farming activity. The only things growing on the one-eighth-acre plot are trees, shrubs and grass.

The Division of Enforcement's annual report also highlights non-pandemic-related issues that arose in fiscal year 2020 and strategic operational changes.

For a few months this year, a U.S. government aid program meant for struggling small-business owners was handing out $10,000 to just about anyone who asked. All it took was a five-minute online application. You just had to say you owned a business with at least 10 employees, and the grant usually arrived within a few days.

As many businesses and consumers have been forced to deal with the difficult conditions thrust upon them by the COVID-19 pandemic, so too have fraudsters needed to make adjustments just to continue their life of crime.

But the federal government has been able to correct some of its earlier missteps, like sending millions of stimulus checks to the deceased, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The COVID-19 pandemic is encouraging various forms of fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

COVID-19 has created new challenges and a remote work environment that heightens the risk of fraud at public companies.

Requiring so little from applicants and giving so little guidance to them is virtually begging for fraudulent loan applications to be submitted or for good faith errors to be made.

The “new normal” of COVID-19-influenced retail is actively being exploited by fraudsters, as LexisNexis Risk Solutions finds fraud costs for U.S. retailers rising in 2020 by 7.3% over last year’s data.

The speed and scale of the Paycheck Protection Program made it particularly susceptible to fraud, explains Juliette Gust, a forensic accountant and founder of Ethics Suite -- and that means businesses need to take steps to protect themselves.

The bank says fraud attempts involving commercial wire transfers have escalated since the outbreak began. It's training employees and customers how to head off the often hard-to-detect scams.

The Internal Revenue Service told nursing homes and other care facilities Tuesday that they shouldn’t be seizing their residents’ economic impact payments.

Peoples Bank in Arkansas and Main Street Bank in Massachusetts are getting smarter about spotting suspicious transactions tied to unemployment benefit fraud as well as warning customers what to watch out for.

Fraudsters are licking their chops at the prospect of businesses and financial services extending remote working because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Customers normally receive debit and credit cards inside a branch. Now banks are shifting the process to their drive-throughs and finding alternative ways for cardholders to key in their PINs.

As many countries and U.S. states now begin to lift stay-at-home orders, fraudsters too are being unleashed to return to familiar targets such as bank branches, ATMs and retail stores.

As companies are evaluating continued operations, balancing profits with acceptable levels of loss, functioning with massively more remote work and trying to make up for economic disruptions, the first thought tends to be “How can we cut costs?”

Grant Thornton CEO Brad Preber and principal Linda Miller, who leads the firm's fraud and financial crimes practice, offer strategies to help businesses protect themselves from fraud amid the pandemic environment.