The Expert Podcast

For interested viewers of this channel, I will be speaking in person at the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Annual Conference in Nevada coming up here in a couple of weeks. I'm going to be talking about Advanced Fraud Victim Support.

Over the years, we've done a lot of fraud cases and a lot of discovery of all kinds of scams—corporate embezzlement, Ponzi schemes, crypto scams. And one of the things that always comes up is how to deal not just with discovering the fraud and investigating the fraud, but how to help the victim become whole again, become more financially sound, and maybe get some recovery.

A lot of times, fraud investigators are great at finding the fraud, they're great at discovering the scam, but then we drop this report on the victim and walk away, and it's over with, right? That victim has a lot to go through still.

So, I'm going to be counseling other fraud examiners and other investigators on how to be more supportive of victims and how to help them with resources, not just tell them "you got scammed" and walk away. We're going to try to do more to get investigators to be more proactive with victims.

If you're all interested in this topic, you can attend the ACFE conference. It's coming up here in a couple of weeks. It's a great conference—it's three days of very, very packed information about investigations, asset searching, all kinds of fraud discovery, and you can network with a lot of really great high-level people. About 50% of the attendees are in the public sector—law enforcement, FBI, CIA, those kinds of people.

So, if it's something you may benefit from, by all means, look at it. You don't have to be a member to attend. I'm a member of the ACFE, but you do not have to be a member.

And if you do want more information about victim support or fraud victim support, you can click the link below. We have resources there; we also have consultation available. But make sure that you remember that as a victim or an investigator, the case is not over once the fraud is discovered—that's just the beginning of it. It may be the end for the investigator, but the victim now has a whole series of events and processes they have to go through.

So, as a victim, make sure you understand that it might be tough. As an investigator, make sure that you have resources available to help that person get through this tough time in their life.