Corporate Fraud Prevention Manual for Smart Leaders

Fraud Preventative Training – Keep Your Finance and Sanity Intact

Losing your money, and having your name dragged through the mud is just some of the problems you might suffer if you fail to establish a strong corporate fraud Prevention. In today’s manual I will share with you some of the wisdom I have gathered working as a body language expert, and being a witness of FBI interrogation techniques.

Hopefully you won’t have to interrogate anyone in your company, or have to suffer any fraud losses, but knowing how body language works might give you an advantage over the people you communicate with on a daily level.

Regardless if you’re interviewing candidates, making a new deal or making a loan decision you can always fall back on the wisdom of body language – because the body never lies.

I have distilled a few great points in this article that should get you started on your way to establishing a successful corporate fraud Prevention plan:

Point No.1 – Strong Corporate Fraud Prevention Starts from the Inside Out

As a leader of an organization you might want to be pro-active and place an official plan of action that shows how to detect and prevent fraud. But creating such a plan is not an easy task, and the biggest mistake most leaders make is focus on outward attacks but forget about the inward danger.

So in order be truly protected you will have to know who you’re working with. Don’t let automation get in the way of face-to-face communication, and learn how to spot the red flag in front of you.

Point No.2 – Get to know people’s financial condition, hobbies, and family.

For example, if their kids have a sudden severe illness or they go to Vegas regularly, watch them more closely. Ask more questions when you learn someone’s husband is out of work, but they’re building a new home.

Here’s a real life example of fraudster activities happening in a bank. This is an extract from my book, “How to Detect Lies, Fraud and Identity Theft, Field Guide” by Traci Brown:

“I had an employee who, we found out, was stealing from her customer’s CD accounts. When a deposit came in, she’d take the money rather than putting it in the customer’s account. She would call all her customers to take care of their needs before she went on vacation so they wouldn’t call anyone else while she was gone. We only found out when the customers came to cash in their CDs. They had no money in the account! Here’s a tip: make sure nobody takes care of a customer exclusively.” Gail Crawford—Bank Manager

Point No.3 – Find the Problem and Have a Consequence

Corporate fraud Prevention starts with your employees and how well you know them. So instead of having to deal with fraud investigation, you focus on fraud prevention.

In order to find out if your employees are telling the truth or not, you’ll need to baseline them; this means:

Asking a question where you know they will answer truthfully like; when’s your birthday?
Watching their reaction and body language;
Comparing it to their behavior when asking the tough questions.

Here’s another real-life example of Baselining, it comes from Jenny who is a Vice President of a Design Firm:

“I have an employee (let’s call him Donny) who lies all the time. He lies about what he thinks about things— he tells other people that he thinks different things. And, his body language tells the tale. When he lies, his eyes close to the point they are half open; he shakes his head “no” and he takes a half step back.

One day I caught him red handed. We had a new client and needed to get information and documents from them so we could start work. I asked Donny to collect the info.

A week later, I asked Donny where the documents were. Because I knew his baseline, I watched as his eyes narrowed and he shook his head, taking a step back. He said he e-mailed three times, called once, and the client wasn’t responsive. He showed all his typical signs and, this time, I knew he was lying because I was able to get into our e-mail system and see that he hadn’t sent the e-mails.”

So once you discover a problem you also have to address it and have a consequence. If you let lies and fraud slide, you send the wrong message.

If you’re interested in discovering more about how body language works, how to spot a liar, and what to do with them afterwards, feel free to schedule Traci’s online Fraud Spotting training.

Here’s a complimentary sample class that will help you get started on your Corporate Fraud Prevention journey.

Check out these other great articles:

Fraud Preventative Training

Fraud Prevention

Employee Fraud Prevention