Fraud prevention is simple

At the seminar, business owners accountants and financial advisors gathered and were briefed by the Inter- Bank Anti-Fraud and Security Committee of the Bankers Association of Trinidad and Tobago, on the ways and means of identifying and protecting finances from fraud.

Over the years the number of reports of fraud were pretty standard, according to bank investors yesterday; but in 2016, there were over a thousand cases of fraud and this year there have been 369 cases so far. These figures trump every murder tolls taken over the years.

Anti-Fraud member Antonio Ventour said that the cause for the rise in fraud cases was because of the economy in which we are operating.

“It would seem that fraud is a little out of control than murders.

We are operating in a challenged economy, and what we know is that whenever you have a challenged economy, fraud always increases” Ventour noted that most businesses did not have policies to combat fraud, which is important to have especially where there would be financial transactions taking place.

He highlighted some of the elements of several fraud methods which included card skimming, in order to get a victim’s bank card numbers and information, Ransomware, which was the act of freezing people’s data on their PC’s and holding the information to ransom as well as cheque fraud.

Ventour also gave tips for people to ensure that they are not victims of fraud.

He said that people should be very aware of every financial situation that they encounter.

People should be especially wary of social media, because it is a safe haven for fraudsters.

Ventour also advised businesses to have a comprehensive policy and procedure for transactions in the workplace.

He also said that beyond all else, people should verify with their officials whenever conducting a financial transaction.