The Unethical Act of Fraud - Essay Example

Fraud Analysis Your Name (First M. Last) School or Institution Name (University at Place or Town, State) Fraud Analysis Fraud is a special term that is used to define the act of deception in order to gain something unfairly or unlawfully (Benson, & French, 2009). Fraud is considered to be a branch of civil crime or White Collar crime, and it is one most common acts of criminal activities in today’s society. The concept of fraud varies differently in different situations, and because of that, frauds can be of many types (Benson, & French, 2009). In this paper, we will be analysing four different cases of fraud and assess the elements involved. When we talk about fraud, no other case could be as appropriate the case of Frank Abagnale Jr. He was a guy who became insanely famous for his acts of deception and con. His specialty was check fraud (Davey, 2017). He started by writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account. But this only worked for a limited time, before the bank demanded payment. So, he would create different identities and open different accounts in different banks. He was a keen observer. Later, he began to print almost perfect and unnoticeable checks. He used to cash them in different banks and before the authorities could realise, he would disappear to another state. In addition to that, one of Frank’s most daring frauds was pretending to be an airlines pilot. He stole the uniform of a pilot who worked for the Pan Am airlines, and made a fake employee ID card. On top of that, he forged a Federal Aviation Administration pilot's license as well (Davey, 2017). As a result, he was able to travel the world for free. He was so precise with his crime that it became almost impossible to catch him. He had countless stories of impersonation. One of his other famous stories of deception included him forging a Law transcript from the Harvard University. Then he passed the Louisiana Bar exam, and managed to get a job at the office of the state attorney general when he was only nineteen years old. These three incidents were his best deception cases of all time. Abagnale committed several types of frauds in his life before getting caught. Most of them were frauds related to checks and impersonations. The key parties involved in most of his cases were banks or international organisations. Frank Abagnale would make millions of dollars throughout his career by committing numerous frauds and almost all the frauds would never be uncovered. But he was eventually caught as Frank actually failed to change his location at the right time. He was first captured in France, where a flight attendant from Air France recognised him as they previously dated. After his capture by the French police, twelve countries where Frank was involved in fraudulent activities, demanded his extradition. He served multiple prison sentences in France, Sweden, and The United States of America. After being deported to the US, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for different acts of forgery. After his re-release, he helped the FBI on multiple occasions regarding cases of fraud, impersonation, and forgery (Davey, 2017). A portrayal of Frank Abagnale’s real life story was displayed in the movie “Catch me if you can” starring Leonard DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The second case we will be discussing is a case of fraud that led to the huge embarrassment of the whole public sector (Olsen, 2015). This scenario took place in a small town of Farmington, New Hampshire. It is a very small country that is situated between the seacoast and the lake region. This blue-collar New England town had a population of only 6,800. The average domestic income was $ 51,382 per year. The town was famous because it was the hometown of President Ulysses S. Like any other small town in the US, Farmington is fully dependent on volunteer firefighters and EMT's. But no monitoring in the governing system of the town enabled the chief of the fire department to get involved in a long-term misappropriation scheme. The chief promoted a new business idea in the town and told its people that if they invest their money in this business, they would get double benefit in return within a couple of months. Most people of the town believed him because he was a respectful individual. Later on, the chief robbed these people of their money and claimed that the shares drowned in the market and the company got bankrupt (Olsen, 2015). This arrangement cost Farmington over $ 265,000, created a state of chaos in the whole town, the ranking of the fire department dropped, and it was an enormous humiliation for the public. This type of scheme related fraud can be labeled as a Manipulation (Benson, & French, 2009). It occurs when an influential individual manipulates people into doing something that will benefit him and him only. The parties related to this fraud were the whole town and the fire chief himself. This was a unique case as the target of the fraud were the whole town and its people. The fraud was uncovered when the complaints of the town's citizens reached to the FBI (Davey, 2017). The FBI collected evidence and caught the fire chief from the jersey shores. The chief gave a full confession about his plan to fraud the whole town. He also admitted that he had been planning this for months after seeing how blindly the town people trusted the authorities. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison and only 20 percent of the assets were returned to the town. The study of this incident shows the crucial importance of oversight of public sectors, nonprofit governance and internal controls, and monitoring of financial affairs within an organisation. The irony is that even till this date frauds in small towns by government staff is very common (Davey, 2017). For the next case of fraud, we will be discussing is an internet scam. This particular type of fraud has become very famous in the modern age (Olsen, 2015). Committing numerous types of frauds over the internet is very common these days. The internet is a heavenly platform for the con artists. It is very easy to avoid using one’s real identity and con people frequently. The internet also allows them to target a lot of people at once. The Nigerian email and the phishing links are the most common methods of fraud over the internet. Both of these are emails related methods that include a fake link where, if the user clicks, all his/her personal information will be leaked to the hacker. But in this case, we will be discussing a very different and special internet scam. It is called the major eBay scams. (Olsen, 2015) These scams occurred in three major ways. The first one is a scam that is targeted towards the eBay sellers, rather than the customers. In this case, the con artist buys an identically damaged item to the item that eBay is selling. Later on, when the get the product from eBay, they lodge a complaint saying that their product got damaged while shipping. It is eBay's policy to refund on damaged items. So, by doing this, the scam artist gets to keep the real item and the refund money as well. To prevent this from happening eBay maintains a monitoring process of all their shipment items, but it is still very hard to avoid these types of fraud (Olsen, 2015). The second scam occurs in the motor sales section of eBay. Usually, in these sections, high price sales take place. Often con artists list fake items by taking a picture from other listings. They provide a sales offer that is very attractive to the buyers. When the buyers get interested in buying the product, they are required to pay partial payment. After receiving partial payments, the con artist removes the ad from the listing. The target for this scam are the buyers. In 2014, Albert Johnson from Ohio was tricked into making partial payments for a new Mazda RX-5. The last scam is also a type of internet phishing. The customers of eBay always get email notifications from eBay (Olsen, 2015). Most of the times these emails are automatically generated and they are targeted toward the registered members. These have been numerous cases, when con artists send similar emails, under the banner of eBay. As soon as the users click on the link provided in these emails, they are asked to log into their eBay account with their personal information. As soon as one log in, all their personal and financial info's are leaked to the con artist. As we can see, internet scams can be targeted to both the sellers and the buyers. The internet is a massive hub of personal data, and it is easy for any hacker or con artist to gain that information and use it to their advantage. In these cases, it is very hard to find the criminal. But in major cases, police are able to track IP and get the criminal. But in the cases of eBay scams, it is hard to track down the frauds (Olsen, 2015). The last case we will be discussing is related to identity theft. ID theft is a type of fraud where con artists steal personal information of an individual and use it to their own advantage (Benson, & French, 2009). This particular case took place in 2014, in Australia. Jill was an international student, who had also been working part time in Melbourne. She wasn’t able to lodge her income tax return as she was confused about what to do. So, she asked the help of her friend Ram, who was also an international student. She gave him her TFN number and other personal information, so he could lodge in the tax return on her behalf. Later on, she did not change the number or notify the tax office before leaving Australia. Once she left, Ram used her TFN number and other information's to lodge false tax returns and open bank accounts in her name. After several tax returns requested, the tax office detected the false return and arrested Ram. During the investigation, the court learned that he also took TFN numbers from other international students who left, and requested tax returns under their names and opened several other bank accounts (Olsen, 2015). Ram was found guilty and sentenced to prison for two and a half years and also had to pay back the money he had claimed. Later on, when Jill had returned to Australia, she had to face a lot of hustle, as it took time for her to constantly prove that her ID was misused. In this case, the target was both Jill and the tax office. This shows that how frightening the crime of identity theft can be. A person can make a fool out of a government sanctioned sector just by using a different identity (Olsen, 2015). Conclusion The unethical act of fraud has now become very rampant in today’s world. Con, deception, and fraud have been going on for ages. Con artists always find new ways to exploit others for their own personal benefits. It is almost impossible for the government officials and the law enforcement authorities to stop these crimes from happening. As a result, it is our responsibility to be more careful. In this age of technology, we constantly compromise our valuable personal information for others to exploit because we share our personal information on the internet without being cautious enough. We have to be very careful about what details we want others to know and what details we want to keep as a secret. These four case studies show that fraudulent activities can be committed by any person from anywhere, even by government officers or close friends. Therefore, it is very important for us to learn about different types of frauds and how to prevent them. Avoiding scams would be easy if we could just keep an open eye. References Benson, M., & French, J. (2009). Cons and frauds (1st ed.). New York: Chelsea House. Chalek, M., & Gardner, J. (2012). Fraud on the court (1st ed.). [United States?]: Universal Technical Systems, Inc. Davey, M. (2017). White-collar crime by banks in Australia is rife and going unchecked, inquiry told. the Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/05/white-collar-by-banks-in-australia-is-rife-and-going-unchecked-inquiry-told Olsen, S. (2015). Top 5 Internet Fraud & Scams Of All Time. MakeUseOf. Retrieved 12 April 2017, from http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-internet-fraud-scams-time/ Read More