The 2012 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) estimates that the typical organization loses five percent of its revenues to occupational fraud each year and that this figure translates to a potential projected global fraud loss of more than $3.5 trillion applied to the estimated 2011 Gross World Product. The study also found that the median loss caused by the occupational fraud cases was $140,000, and more than one-fifth of these cases caused losses of at least $1 million. The ACFE 2012 Report to the Nations is available at: http://www.acfe.com/RTTN/. (more…)

In a recent state court case that concerned a fact pattern familiar to background screening specialist, a local office of a national staffing firm supplied an employer with a bookkeeper that turned out to have criminal record for felony fraud and who misrepresented her educational background.  The worker embezzled $138,350.  However, since the employer did not specify that the staffing firm should do a background check, and the staffing firm never claimed that they would do one, the employer’s claims were dismissed.  (more…)