Robert W Lynch Jr. Earns CFE Credential

Austin, TX – March 23, 2010- The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the world’s leading provider of anti-fraud training and education, is pleased to award Robert W Lynch Jr, of Loveland, Ohio, the globally-preferred Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) credential. In order to become a CFE, an anti-fraud professional must meet a stringent set of criteria and pass a rigorous exam administered by the ACFE.

Lynch has successfully met the ACFE’s character, experience, and education requirements for the CFE credential, and has demonstrated knowledge in four areas critical to the fight against fraud: Fraudulent Financial Transactions, Criminology & Ethics, Legal Elements of Fraud and Fraud Investigation.

Lynch joins the ranks of over 23,000 business and government professionals worldwide who have also earned the CFE certification. Lynch is currently President of Strategic Financial Leadership, Inc in Loveland, Ohio.

CFEs have the ability to: Examine data and records to detect and trace fraudulent transactions; interview suspects to obtain information and confessions; write investigation reports, advise clients as to their findings and testify at trial; be well-versed in the law as it relates to fraud and fraud investigations; and understand the underlying factors that motivate individuals to commit fraud. Certified Fraud Examiners (CFE’s) on six continents have investigated more than 1 million suspected cases of civil and criminal fraud.

About the ACFE
The ACFE, the world's premier provider of training and education for fraud detection and deterrence, has nearly 50,000 members, sponsors more than 125 chapters worldwide and provides anti-fraud educational materials to over 100 universities. Identified as “the premier financial sleuthing organization” by The Wall Street Journal, the ACFE has captured national and international media attention. For more information about the ACFE visit www.ACFE.com.

FRAUD

A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.

The above legal definition of fraud is very broad and covers a lot of actions. However, in the world of business fraud is often simply taking something that doesn’t belong to you. It can occur once, or as often is the case, many times.

Why do people commit fraud? Although each case will be different, most can be reduced to that famous Willie Sutton quote about robbing banks, because that’s where the money is. A book titled “Other People's Money: A Study in the Social Psychology of Embezzlement” first published in the 1970’s reports on the research of Donald Cressey. Having interviewed many convicted fraudsters, he came to the conclusion that almost all fraud cases begin with living beyond ones means. To the embarrassment of spending more than they earn, add the ability to commit fraud due to their work and rationalizing the action and you have Cressey’s famous Fraud Triangle.


So what can you do to protect your business from becoming the victim of fraud? 1) Have a good system of Internal Controls. 2) Review your processes to make sure that the Internal Controls are not being circumvented. 3) Have a Fraud Policy complete with system for alerting a designated person to investigate fraud complaints. 4) Educate your staff about the cost of fraud to both the company and its employees. 5) Know your staff well and what personal problems they are facing. 6) Stop putting your staff in situations where they might be tempted to commit fraud.

This last one is in my personal list of mistakes owners make when trying to save resources. They expect all of their staff to have the same ethical make up that they have, or worse, they may think that their staff will be more ethical than they are.

There will be more coming from me about ethics in the future.




© Strategic Financial Leadership, Inc. 2010