What is Fraud?
Fraud is a serious crime that affects numerous American businesses, costing millions of dollars each year. Fraud is considered a white-collar crime and is often perpetrated by someone with access to your organization, whether it is a company insider spilling secrets, a vendor cutting corners, or someone outside your organization who can benefit from dishonesty or deceit. Fraud is difficult to detect, but often the sure sign that something is wrong is when you begin bleeding money with no reasonable explanation. If this sounds like your New York City business, consult a Certified Fraud Examiner to get to the bottom of things.
What is the difference between a Private Investigator and a Certified Fraud Examiner?
A Certified Fraud Examiner has experience with corporate finance and has extensive knowledge of accounting, which they use to scour a company’s financials to identify the source of the fraud. While both private investigators and fraud examiners will conduct interviews and investigations, a fraud examiner has more specialized knowledge when it comes to finance.
Private investigators will often work alongside fraud examiners in New York City to help identify the source, or sources, of a company’s financial woes. This ends up being a great partnership, as the fraud examiner can delve deep into a company’s financials without distraction, while a PI works to uncover information through interviews, surveillance, and other means.
Corporate fraud is often perpetrated by an intelligent individual who is conscious of the decisions they are making, and who are actively working to cover their tracks. By teaming up, private investigators and fraud examiners have a better chance of finding the source and proving corporate fraud or corruption.
Cases of Insurance Fraud
When individuals commit insurance fraud, they are deliberately misleading the other party to unfairly obtain benefits, property, or services. This can be very costly for the other party involved, but it is often not as difficult to prove as corporate fraud. If someone is claiming to be injured, proving insurance fraud may be as simple as gathering photographic proof that the individual is indeed not injured, or for work-related injuries, that they may have sustained the injury outside of work or at another job.
Insurance fraud private investigation also includes investigating insurance providers who will not pay legitimate claims, and a PI or CFE may be called upon to investigate these claims.
Should I Hire a Professional?
Fraud is a white-collar crime. It is often committed by smart, well-educated individuals who know what they are doing is wrong, and who will go to great lengths to avoid detection. It also means they are desperate to avoid prosecution, and this can put a novice investigator in a dangerous situation. Only licensed investigators should conduct surveillance and collect evidence for their own safety and to ensure a solid case in court.
New York City private investigators and fraud examiners understand the laws regarding evidence collection and surveillance, and ensure the information they present will hold up in court. The more complex a fraud investigation, the stronger the evidence needs to be to make your case.
Our New York City Fraud Investigations Division is a team of licensed private investigators and fraud examiners with the expertise to uncover fraud and meet the objectives of our clients. We have extensive knowledge and experience investigating fraud cases, and are equipped to solve even the most complex fraud investigations. Our objective is to detect cases of fraud, and to prevent fraud from happening again.
