In life, there are many times someone sees an opportunity that can better a situation in their life. Whether morally right or wrong some still take the action to better their life even if it can potentially be considered fraud. People tend to find ways to look past their morals. These situations can be something so small as not splitting the tips at your job evenly, fixing an old gambling debt, even cheating on your taxes. Some even take it as far as creating a fake business to receive money from people or steal money coming into an already existent company. These opportunities are everywhere we look. There are not many people in the world who would give up an opportunity to better a situation in their life. The question is just how far are they willing to go and for what are they receiving in the end. Most of these situations, if not all can be analyzed through the fraud triangle. The fraud triangle consists of three different parts. The first part would be the perceived financial need or the pressure upon the person. This could be caused by the person situation where they may be in need, or possibly someone in their life pushing them to do the act. It could also be something as simple as a want that they feel they should go after no matter what it takes or the cost. This will lead into step two of the fraud triangle which is perceived opportunity or, in other words, the opportunity to commit the fraud. This is what they do to actually do the crime. How they go about
1. The three aspects of fraud - Perceived pressure, Rationalization, and Opportunity were present in the CIT case as follows:
In chapter one of Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt describe how when incentives are strong enough, many usually honest people from different walks of life will cheat in order to gain financially or climb the ladder in their careers. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing.” This chapter covers three varieties of incentives: Economic, Social and Moral. Economic incentives motivate people with the promise of money or goods. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives motivate people on the basis of right and wrong. We look at four
In today's day and age sales workers are taught to lie and cheat to get a good price. Also studies show, greed is closely related to envy, they’re the evil step sisters of life. That same study shows, almost everyone in today’s society show traces of greed. Greed has an impact of destruction of relationships, and most times leads to loneliness. Greed seems to be a common motive of fraud. Fraud is the “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain”. Also executives of big companies have a goal to rip you off, to make the maximum amount of money
The company’s finance department had the chance to reduce the company’s weight in mortgage-backed securities. However, it chooses not to. The company’s financial adviser did not evaluate any risk that would emerge in the economic sector of the U.S during that year. Furthermore, the company had an opportunity to identify the consequence that would result due to the falling mortgages; somewhat the company neglected this risk and increased in value of portfolio.
An action is considered unethical when it goes against widely understood and established societal, professional and/or personal value systems. Fraud is wrongful behavior that is done with the intention to deceive others and typically involves a criminal act. Illegal acts are committed when established laws are broken. Walt Pavlo adversely progressed from displaying unethical, fraudulent behavior to outright illegal acts.
In the past few years, enterprise integrity has come up on a regular subject of conversation. In the past ten years only, we have seen numerous situations associated with collaborative scams which have shaken the people 's trust in businesses and also the general economic climate. A few of the many salient frauds are the WorldCom and Enron 's scams, the ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernard Madoff 's, the latest accusations of Goldman Sachs tricking option traders to guarantee the company 's personal profit. Incidents such as these designed us all, as upcoming corporation professionals as well as market leaders, think about ethics and its particular function in the commercial world (Gross, 2010.)
(TCO 5) Fraud is an intentional misrepresentation of facts, made for the purpose of persuading another party to act in a way that causes injury or damage to that party. In our readings and discussions we have seen several examples of fraud in business. Using that experience (1) provide an example of a common fraudulent practice in business with an explanation of how the practice works and (2) name and describe each of the elements of the Fraud Triangle.
It is important to first gain an understanding of the various types of fraud, in order to aid understanding in regards to the prevention of fraudulent activity. This paper begins with a review of the definition of financial fraud, and identification of the different fraud types. Further, included is an examination of what motivates individuals to commit fraud, including an identification of some of the method in which people commit fraud. A discussion of the importance of the fraud triangle, and how rationalization contributes to fraud is a key area of focus. Finally, there is an examination of some controls that prevent and detect fraudulent behavior, including the value and importance of understanding the nature of fraud for
Another source of a great amount of fraud is the fact that a lot of businesses are careless when they're hiring new employees because they do not do conduct adequate background checks during the hiring process. They also have lack an adequate network and do not have a reliable computer security system in place so that also plays a big factor in to why their business is victim to fraud and cybercrime.
In chapter 1, Levitt and Dubner describe how many people in different cultures and walks of life, which are otherwise inclined to be honest, find subtle ways of cheating to advance their position or increase monetary awards when incentives are strong enough. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing,” and identify three varieties of incentives. Economic incentives are those, which a person responds to in the marketplace. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care or are worried about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives appeal to a person’s sense of right versus wrong. Three case studies of the
In the article “Psychology of Fraud: Why Good People Due Bad Things” by Joffe-Walt, Chana and Alix Spiegel they contend that most people are able to be unethical “without realizing it”. They show this by the story of Toby Graves and his bad behavior. They tell why Toby breaks his promises and believe that it may be unintentional. The authors also explain that many people commit fraud for the simple fact of that they like the person they are helping. Joffe-Walt and Spiegel briefly look at how Toby felt after his plans failed.
Some industry-specific factors, such as having valuable near-cash assets, can increase the organization's vulnerability. Also they will need to rationalize the actions as justifiable. The individuals committing the fraud must first convince themselves that their behavior is acceptable or will be temporary. For example, Barry Minkow’s believed that the lies and deceit are for the betterment of his company and that with time everything will eventually return to normal.
“The first leg of the fraud triangle represents pressure. This is what motivates the crime in the first place. The individual
Fraud is defined as a deliberate misrepresentation that causes a person or business to suffer damages, often in the form of monetary losses through deception or concealment. And Occupational Fraud as defined by the ACFE is the use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets. Traditional fraud triangle theory by Donald Cressey explains that propensity of fraud occurring in an organization lies on three critical elements which are Pressure, Opportunity, and Rationalization.
Essentially, all three elements of the fraud triangle must be present for fraud to be committed: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. Additionally, nine factors provided the atmosphere for the perfect fraud storm of 2000 through 2002. The nine factors included: economy, moral values, incentives, expectations, debt, accounting rules, auditor dependence, greed, and educator failures (Albrecht et al., 2012). When combined with the elements of the fraud triangle these factors enabled organizations such as Enron and WorldCom to commit the fraudulent activities that resulted in this perfect storm.