ACFE ¦ Rethinking How We Raise Fraud Awareness

Fraud awareness works when it reaches people, not checklists

Anti-fraud professionals know that people have to understand what fraud looks like before anyone can detect or prevent it, and that everyone from front-line staff to the board has a part to play. Getting support for anti-fraud work is the harder part. Competing priorities, thin resources and the stigma around the subject all stand in the way. A single well-prepared conversation, a few solid data points or a one-hour training session built for the right audience often shifts attitudes more than a formal programme does. International Fraud Awareness Week, promoted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) since 2000, is meant to create openings of exactly that kind.

Why organisations avoid talking about fraud

The public finds fraud fascinating, and true-crime programmes draw large audiences. Inside organisations the topic meets resistance. Some managers fear that open discussion gives staff ideas or tells them the organisation is an easy target. Some lawyers worry that an organisation which has talked openly about fraud risk could be held partly responsible when a major fraud later happens, and be seen less as a victim. Leaders also rarely want to believe fraud could happen on their watch, since being known as the person who ran a defrauded organisation weighs heavily on a career.

These objections are understandable, and an awareness effort has to deal with them head on. One that ignores them will at best be tolerated.

Bastian Schwind-Wagner _Follow

"Fraud awareness tends to fail in organisations for a simple reason: it is treated as a box to tick, while fraud itself is a people problem. The formats that work – a dinner where colleagues share their own experiences, games that bring HR, operations and vendors into the room, a frank talk with an elderly relative – succeed because they reach people where they are.

For AML teams, this is more than a side topic. Romance scams, pig butchering and elder fraud are predicate offences whose proceeds flow through the same accounts we monitor, so every victim who recognises the red flags in time is one laundering chain less."

Fraud is a people issue, not a books-and-records issue

Many organisations treat fraud risk management as a checklist of tasks to complete. Fraud is committed by people, though, and each person comes to a situation with a different perspective. Two people can hear the same song or watch the same event and take away different things. An anti-fraud culture therefore starts with understanding where each audience stands and why it resists.

The goal is a shared understanding that discussing fraud is no verdict on any leader, that it protects the organisation, and that fraud will be attempted whether anyone talks about it or not. Awareness work changes behaviour when it feels authentic, and a webinar clicked through to tick a compliance box rarely does. Once the subject is brought to life, more people come forward with concerns. Some who are close to making a bad decision change course because they see the risk is not worth it, and the rest of the organisation notices.

From a national initiative to a global movement

Fraud Week started in 2000 with a plain message: fraud affects everyone. In the first year, about two dozen organisations co-signed what was then called National Fraud Awareness Week and pledged to share resources and information on fraud. Support grew slowly. Members of the US Congress spoke up for the initiative, and local governments issued proclamations recognising fraud prevention as a vital function in their communities.

The early editions ran alongside the ACFE’s annual conference. Over the years the national focus gave way to an international audience, and the week moved to November. Hundreds of public and private sector organisations, government agencies, NGOs and individual supporters now sign up as supporting organisations and ambassadors, with a mandate to show why fraud prevention and detection matter by sharing what they know with staff, partners, communities and families.

Interactive formats make awareness stick

Many editions later, the lesson is that creative formats are what people remember. A professional chapter in Philadelphia that supports Fraud Week every year hosts a murder mystery dinner, where spotting deception and attention to detail decide who solves the case. Most of the value comes after the meal. Participants talk about what Fraud Week is for and why fraud awareness matters in any profession. Asked who has been affected by fraud, personally or through family, friends or colleagues, nearly everyone in the room raises a hand. The evening closes with practical advice on keeping up with scams that change constantly, and on how to talk to elderly relatives, who are frequent victims and can lose their retirement savings.

The chapter is active the rest of the year too, volunteering in the community and supporting a fraud and internal control case competition for university students. It has lasted because long-serving volunteers work alongside newer members who bring fresh energy.

Fraud awareness games across borders

In Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian investment bank has run annual fraud awareness games for ten years, with teams competing on their fraud knowledge and their ability to spot red flags. The games started as internal staff education under the bank’s then chief regulatory and compliance officer. Today they draw employees, regulators, enforcement agencies, industry partners, professional bodies and educational institutions, along with international teams from Singapore, Indonesia, India, South Africa and Belgium. In one year, as many as 250 teams registered.

The organisers judge the games by the conversations they start and the behaviour they change, and by how far people come to see fraud prevention as their own responsibility. Headcounts matter less. The format is aimed at the whole organisation. Fraud and compliance staff understand the risks because they handle them daily, while human resources, operations and even vendors seldom come across them. Participants say they come away with a better grasp of the fraud risks in their own jobs. Working through phishing attempts, scams and real cases teaches them to recognise warning signs and builds habits such as verifying unusual instructions, questioning inconsistencies and asking for clarification before acting.

Compliance is the baseline, ethics is the compass

Anti-fraud practice relies on clear rules, yet no rulebook covers every situation. Compliance lays down the laws, regulations and internal rules, and in a heavily regulated institution the compliance function checks that people follow them. Someone can still tick every box and do something that feels wrong. Ethics covers that gap by prompting people to stop and ask whether an action is right, and whether they should take it even where no rule forbids it.

Employees should think for themselves instead of following rules mechanically. Where compliance and ethics work together, people follow the rules because they understand the reasons behind them, and fear of being caught plays a smaller role. Staff raise concerns earlier, while problems are still small, and customers, regulators and colleagues trust an organisation that does the right thing when nobody is watching. Seen this way, compliance helps the business grow in a healthy way. It also takes the courage to tell senior leaders what they may not want to hear, and that is where an organisation’s culture shows.

Music as an unusual awareness channel

Awareness can travel through unexpected channels. A long-time audit and compliance leader who is also a musician wrote a song called Fraud Hurts after a half-joking challenge during a training course. It started playing between sessions at ACFE events, and people began looking it up. Ahead of Fraud Week 2026 came an EP of four songs on core anti-fraud themes: ethical drift seen from a fraudster’s side, the danger of relying on trust as a control, professional scepticism set to the rhythm of an investigative interview, and the courage and isolation that can come with being a whistleblower.

People remember messages that reach them emotionally, and a shared experience like this can bind a professional community together in ways a slide deck seldom manages.

Training reduces losses and speeds up detection

Inside organisations, the effect of good awareness training can be measured. The ACFE’s Report to the Nations has found that formal fraud awareness training goes along with lower losses and faster detection. The work outside organisations matters just as much. Anti-fraud professionals who speak to church groups, community centres and students bring expertise those audiences rarely get access to. They can tell victims that they are not alone and that help exists, and talks with students put the fraud examination profession on the radar of the next generation.

Fraud has become an industry

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, many people picked up technical skills that made schemes possible they would never have tried before. Fraud can now be bought as a service, with ransomware for hire, stolen card data and credential dumps on offer on the dark web. It has become a thriving business, and its victims are ordinary people, their families and their employers.

Elder abuse, romance scams and pig butchering investment schemes are on the rise, wrecking lives and families and eroding trust in whole communities. Each of these schemes is also a predicate offence. Its proceeds have to be moved, layered and cashed out, which ties consumer fraud awareness directly to the anti-money laundering work of banks and payment providers.

One conversation can make a difference

Their skills and knowledge give anti-fraud professionals a particular responsibility. Concentrating only on the fraud risks inside one’s own organisation leaves out the communities where people are harmed every day. Often the most useful contribution is simple: teaching people the red flags and the steps that keep them from becoming victims.

Fraud Week is a practical place to start. That can mean sharing something learned this year with professional contacts, discussing the work with a colleague, or spending ten minutes with a relative explaining how current scams work. Those who like public speaking can address a community group, and free materials are available on the Fraud Week website.