The Fraud Triangle as hypothesized by Donald R. Cressey constitutes of three factors, namely, perceived unsharable financial need, perceived opportunity, and rationalization, which when joined, formed a fraud triangle. According to Cressey, these three components must be present at the same time, for an ordinary person to commit a fraud. “Breaking the ‘Fraud Triangle’ is … Continue reading
The fraud triangle is a hypothesis, credited to Dr. Donald R. Cressey (April 27, 1919 – July 21, 1987), an American penologist, sociologist, and criminologist who made innovative contributions to the study of organized crime, prisons, criminology, the sociology of criminal law, and white-collar crime. The fraud triangle gives a working model to understand why … Continue reading
Email scams are “scams that use the facility of emails for purposes of scamming. Unsolicited commercial email, or “spam,” is the starting point for many email scams. Before the advent of email, a scammer had to contact each potential victim individually by post, fax, telephone, or through direct personal contact. These methods would often require … Continue reading
It is convenient to buy on your doorstep and thus, door-to-door selling has been prevalent since a long time. There are laws regarding doorstep selling and many honest businesses use this selling technique within the boundaries of the law. However, fraudsters disregard law and use this technique along with other clever tactics to make you … Continue reading
The courier fraud occurs when fraudsters trick you to give your name, address, full bank details, card and PIN, to a courier on your doorstep. Elderly persons are generally targeted for this scam. Several variations of this courier scam is possible, but generally all of them feature the following: – A scammer will cold call … Continue reading
The short firm and long firm fraud occurs when a firm is opened and closed down, within a short or long duration, and conducts business with the sole intention of committing fraud. The firm may be apparently legitimate, or totally illegitimate. Short firm fraud Short firm fraud, also known as phoenix fraud, happens when any … Continue reading
An advanced version of scareware is ransomware, as it not only scares but also asks ransom after corrupting the computer. The FBI issued a recent warning that a file encrypting ransomware called as “CryptoLocker” is attacking businesses. “Businesses are receiving e-mails with alleged customer complaints containing an attachment that when opened, appears as a window … Continue reading
VAT Fraud is also known as Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) Fraud or Missing Trader Fraud or Carousel Fraud or Contra-Trading Fraud. VAT Fraud is “the theft of Value Added Tax (VAT) from a government by organized crime gangs who exploit the way VAT is treated within multi-jurisdictional trading where the movement of goods between jurisdictions … Continue reading
Money transfer fraud “consists of an offer of employment transferring money to a foreign company, supposedly because it costs too much to do it through other methods. The prospective victim receives an email usually for employment or a business venture or work from home offer. There are various types of emails with different pitches, however, … Continue reading
We all want to reduce our carbon footprints and in the process also save money. Scammers exploit this environmentally friendly motivation in us, by attempting to sell fictitious, cheap, bogus and ineffective energy saving devices, at high prices. The scammers may claim that these devices are very simple to use, they may plug straight into … Continue reading