Corporate Watchdog: 5 Types Of Corporate Theft That Can Fall Under The Radar

watchdog commercial investigations

Employers must have a measure of faith in the people they’ve gathered under their wing. A healthy company mentality, we are often told, is one of trust and understanding. However, does this swing both ways? Are your staff resistant to temptations such as fraud or competitor-led espionage?

It’s not exactly a wonderful thought, but crimes of this nature can be very hard to detect. If you have any doubts over those in your organisation, consider whether they may be delving into the following types of theft…

1. Skimming

Wherever there’s a monetary transaction in your business, employees are (theoretically) able to skim some off the top before they record the payment. This may involve small cuts here and there, but the numbers can soon add up. Detecting this can be extremely difficult, since there’s enough time to fabricate the receipt before anything seems amiss. Large payments can also be invested and returned to the company account after a few days, netting the fraudster an interest sum.

2. Payroll manipulation

You may be generous enough to offer your employees amenities and privileges when they’re on the job. This might include hotel stays, business lunches and travel costs, all of which they can falsely pin on doing something in your interest, boosting their take-home pay. Generally, any deception regarding work-related hours is a crime: not logging extended breaks; claiming that overtime was needed for a project… the list goes on.

3. Information theft

Occasionally, it pays to be paranoid. Competitors may want to break open your secrets, laying their hands on key information that’ll give them an edge in the marketplace. And the potential is there for them to bend one of your employees to their will, offering lucrative rewards for their assistance. Someone could subsequently upload sensitive files to a memory stick, or screenshot quarterly projections and client data for prying eyes. Information drives our economy, and is at risk from all angles of your venture.

4. Kickbacks

If you’re involved in stock purchase, a crafty vendor may try to sway a staff member around to their business, exclusively, by putting a little extra in their pocket. Such a deal is accomplished by the vendor hiking up their prices – the excess is justified by giving the employee their own portion of cash, paid directly to their bank account. From the outside, you’ll see nothing wrong: simply a good working relationship that fills your stock orders and remains on a stable budget.

5. Accosted stock

Speaking of physical products, some of you will worry about ghosted stock items. A staff member could, for instance, toss a perfectly good item into a rubbish bag, leave it outside until closing time, and fish the thing out for themselves. They’ll then list it as broken or out-of-date, while the resale value may be lucrative.
Now that you’ve been granted an insight into the extent of corporate theft, and how tough it can be to weed out, don’t fall victim to it. Trust can be a trap-door; if you’re scared about falling in, call Reveal PI today, and enquire about our corporate surveillance services. We’ll sniff out the wrongdoers, no matter how well they hide themselves…

 

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