International Fraud Awareness Week runs from November 13th to 19th. Organized by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the idea is to help fraud managers engage the interest of colleagues around their business.
In part the ACFE is promoting the Fraud Risk Management Guide they co-authored with COSO. Various interactive tools have been made available, but I am never entirely happy with organizations that present themselves as the good guys whilst charging you to purchase printed copies of their guidance. This is the year 2016; it is easy to use the web to circulate electronic documents for free. The only reason to charge for a document is to make a profit.
The ACFE is giving away some other content, including various posters, logos and social media badges. Though they may promote awareness of fraud in general, they also seem designed to promote the ACFE.
You might want to join big businesses like Orange and Virgin Media by becoming an ambassador or supporter of fraud week. But I admit I am nonplussed at this initiative. Anybody can lay claim to a special ‘day’ or ‘week’. Some years ago I lampooned this kind of marketing activity by proclaiming December 2nd to be International Revenue Assurance Day.
Will a single fraudster be caught or deterred if you give a talk about International Fraud Week, or use the #fraudweek hashtag on Twitter? It is fine for people to be proud of how they fight fraud, but the more time they spend saying how proud they are, the less time they will spend actually fighting fraud.
