Profiling The Fraudster: Removing the Mask to Prevent and Detect Fraud

Chapter 3What Is Fraud and More Specifically Occupational Fraud?

THE TERM FRAUD HAS EVOLVED to encompass many forms of misconduct. Occupational fraud is financial crime. Financial crime generally refers to offenses that result in financial loss that do not involve violence. Occupational fraud is theft with a fountain pen rather than a gun. This classification is more convincing than that of white-collar crime or organizational crime given that people who wear white collars have been known to engage in acts of violence and that the criminal classes are not restricted to people with blue collars, and of course fraud also occurs outside of the organizational environment.

There are many definitions of fraud pertaining to fraud in an occupational sense.

The legal definition of fraud, from USLegal Dictionary (http://definitions.uslegal.com), is that it is an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material fact. [Emphasis added.]

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary (www.merriam-webster.com) defines fraud as an intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value.

Black's Law Dictionary defines fraud as a knowing misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of a material fact ...