In the last few days, CIFAS, the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service announced that fraud committed by staff increased by 14.5% in 2011 compared to 2010.
A quick search over the internet highlights this. By searching for “employee fraud UK” we found the following headlines over only a 5 day period:
Former employee defrauded housing association (21 June 2012)
Bride who stole £200,000 for lavish wedding jailed for 20 months (20 June 2012)
Man jailed for multi-million pound scam (22 June 2012)
MOT man pocketed thousands in fraud (18 June 2012)
All of the above articles relate to employee theft which could potentially have been avoided had those businesses applied preventative measures.
Fraud can cause significant damage to a business’s reputation as well as costing it thousands, or even millions of pounds.
Often, implementing simple, common sense measures can save a business significant sums of money, at very little cost.
The increase in employee fraud is largely down to the current economic climate and double dip recession. Firstly, most employees have less money relative to the increasing cost of living and are often under significant financial pressures. Secondly, business are making redundancies and cutting bonuses, meaning staff are working harder and having to do more work for less money.
The mixture of pressure on employees and an increase in the opportunities for fraud arising have had a significant impact on employee fraud.
To help your company assess its risk of fraud, Inquesta has developed a FREE Fraud Health Check.
It is a simple online questionnaire which should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and once completed, we will provide a fraud risk rating and recommendations.
As well as helping your clients, this tool is a way for you to reinvigorate any dwindling client relationships by offering a no obligation free service.
If you or any of your clients would like to complete the Fraud Health Check, click here or go to [intlink id=”1062″ type=”page”]www.staging-inquesta.temp513.kinsta.cloud/go/fraud[/intlink].