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Amy Wilson's Fraud Triangle

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Amy Wilson, a wife, a mother, and an accountant started her job as a cashier and after getting bachelors degree, she became a staff accountant at a big manufacturing firm. Eventually, moving up the corporate ladder, she was hired as an Office Manager for a family run, small manufacturing business (Yager, 2016). Soon her overachiever nature led her to commit fraud which eventually put her behind bars (Yager, 2016). There are three factors of the Fraud Triangle that motivates a person to commit fraud and these three factors are Pressure, Rationalization, and Opportunity. The first factor, Pressure, is due to some sort of financial pressure that a person cannot share with anyone or a personal desire for material goods those are beyond their financial …show more content…

Wilson had the access to everything in the accounting and financial system except for signing checks (Katz, 2013). Moreover, Wilson had the opportunity to forged signatures, paid her credit card with company checks, and reconciled the bank accounts (Yager, 2016). In this matter, Wilson had no supervision over her and employer’s trust gave her the opportunity to embezzled company’s funds. The company’s weak internal controls lead her to commit fraud repeatedly without being caught. Red flags are the signals that determine the abnormal activity in the normal routine of the company’s operations (Kranacher, M.-J, Riley, & Wells, 2011, p.186). First, there was no separation of duties and Wilson had the access to authorize checks as well as reconcile the accounts (Dunne, 2014). Also, the increase of 2% in Cost of Goods sold in the customer’s accounts warns about the occurrence of fraud (Yager, 2016). Another red flag was working longer hours and taking a limited vacation (Wilson, 2013). For Wilson, working long hours and on weekends justified her guilt and made her feel less guilty (Wilson,

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