Page 242 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

6 Methodology

The 2008 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse is

based on the results of an online survey distributed to 16,606
certified Fraud examiners (cFes) in late 2007 and early 2008.

respondents were asked to provide a narrative of 3. The investigation must have been
the single largest fraud case they had investigated completed; and
that met four explicit criteria:
4. The cFe must have been reasonably sure
1. The case must have involved occupational the perpetrator(s) was/were identified.
fraud (defined as internal fraud, or fraud
committed by a person against the respondents were also presented with 96 questions
organization for which he or she works); to answer. These questions covered particular de-
tails of the scheme, including information about
2. The investigation must have occurred the perpetrator, the victim organization, and the
between January 2006 and the time of
survey participation; methods of fraud employed, as well as fraud trends
in general. overall, we received 1,117 responses to
the survey, 959 of which were usable for purposes
of this report. The data contained herein is based
solely on the information provided in these 959
cases.

Who Provided the Data?

to ensure comparability of the data received, we lim-
ited potential survey participants to certified Fraud
examiners located in the united states and u.s.
territories. We asked respondents to provide certain
information about their professional experience and
qualifications so that we could gather a fuller under-
standing of who was involved in investigating the
frauds reported to us as part of our survey.

The data in this study is
based on 959 cases of Primary Occupation
occupational fraud that over half of the cFes who participated in our
were reported by CFEs. study identified themselves as either internal audi-
tors or fraud examiners. another 17% stated that
they were accountants, and roughly 10% indicated
they worked as law enforcement officers.

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