Social Psychology: What Selling Candy Can Teach Us About Getting Confessions

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Social Psychology: What Selling Candy Can Teach Us About Getting Confessions

In his Tuesday morning session, “Social-Psychological Behaviors: An Underused Tool for Fraud Investigators,” Bret Hood, CFE, shared that candy story with attendees of the ACFE Global Fraud Conference. The child in question was his daughter and after slumping candy fundraising numbers, he taught her to use a two-prong question method to increase the likelihood of people buying the bars. He explained that fraud examiners can use a number of psychological tactics like two-prong questioning to interview and elicit confessions out of suspected fraudsters.

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​​​​​​​Spies Now Conduct Espionage From Their Couches

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​​​​​​​Spies Now Conduct Espionage From Their Couches

“There are no hackers; there are only spies,” cybersecurity expert Eric O’Neill told attendees at the Tuesday Working Lunch. “Hacking is nothing more than the necessary evolution of espionage. As we took our information out of file cabinets and we put it into databases, and then because we wanted to communicate quickly we hooked those databases up to the Internet … we exposed ourselves to a new way of espionage.”

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The Challenge of Proving Intent

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The Challenge of Proving Intent

We often talk about the importance of getting inside the mind of a fraudster in order to prevent and detect fraud, but taking that journey into the psyche is crucial when proving one of the pillars a fraud case stands on: intent. In her breakout session today, Janet McHard described the elusiveness of proving someone’s intent to commit fraud.

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Conducting a Contract Fraud and Abuse Risk Examination

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Conducting a Contract Fraud and Abuse Risk Examination

Contract and procurement fraud can be tricky to prevent when the integrity of an organization is compromised. Take, for example, an employee who is tasked with hiring an office cleaning crew. They know of one cleaning crew that’s fantastic and want to make things easier by giving them the bid. However, they know the crew doesn’t work in the mornings — they’ll only come in the afternoon or evening. In an effort to “win them the contract,” the employee withholds the full scope of the job requirements.

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Cultivating Humility, Not Confidence, in Ethics Training Can Keep Execs Out of Jail

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Cultivating Humility, Not Confidence, in Ethics Training Can Keep Execs Out of Jail

We hear so many cases about fraudsters’ rationalizations for committing their crimes. Eugene Soltes, Harvard business professor and fraud researcher, told a story during the Tuesday morning General Session about a brilliant top executive who avoided jail not because of his sterling ethics, but because he humbled himself enough to listen to the wise counsel of a dissenting voice.

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Whistleblower Dr. Sam Foote

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Whistleblower Dr. Sam Foote

Dr. Sam Foote, the whistleblower who brought the U.S. Veteran Affairs (VA) scandal to light in 2014, was awarded the ACFE Sentinel Award during Monday's working lunch. One of the questions Dr. Foote asked the U.S. members of Congress, was, "How can you possibly say that this man's death was not a result of a delay in care?" when speaking up about delayed wait times for veterans. For choosing truth over self, Dr. Sam Foote was and is a true anti-fraud hero.

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