Bernie Madoff, Washington Mutual, Goldman Sachs, the sub-prime mortgage rip off; new bad-sters pop up every day.
Corruption is just not as shocking as it once was. These headlines have become the standard, and unfortunately for some, have become the new threshold of what constitutes fraud.
On an intellectual level, we know that the media presents us with big-name stories of multi-million dollar scams. I don’t blame them for telling me when big-names steal gobs of cash. It’s news worthy. But has this caused us to lower the bar?
CNN hasn’t told me about dude who slipped in an extra receipt on his expense report; or the insurance fella who submitted a claim for services not rendered. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t tell me about the loan officer who excluded derogatory info from a loan application so that his borrower’s loan would get approved.
This is not shocking. No name headlines with small dollar amounts aren’t that interesting, and frankly won’t sell a lot of ad space. But I will admit, I’d probably read a story with the headline, Dude Slips in Receipt.
It’s normal for us to compare good and bad things based where we perceive the bar is set.
Here is a, somewhat, related analogy: Just the other night, my wife and I were out with a few other married couples. One of the women announced that it was her 19th year wedding anniversary. She went on to say that she met her wonderful husband in college, in Iowa. One of our tactless friends blurted out, “You picked him? Well, I suppose he wasn’t a bad choice considering the selection in Iowa.”
Apparently, this woman’s husband did not pass the threshold of where the big mouth set his bar. In his micro-society she was good and her spouse was bad. His standard has obviously been influenced by his life experiences. Have people have gotten better looking lately? Perhaps he attended a college full of gorgeous co-eds, or maybe reads a lot of GQ magazines.
We all compare “apples”, perhaps subconsciously, which influences our choices. As those apples change, so does our threshold of an acceptable apple. I’m most concerned with ethics and fraud and not so much about spouses and fruit. It’s not so crazy to differentiate and rate the acceptability of the following: Bernie Madoff gets sent to prison for a multi-million dollar fraud scheme vs. all I’m doing is “helping” a customer get approved for a loan.
I have a personal example.
When I was a loan officer in 1994, I met a group of real estate investors. They wanted me to be their loan officer. Of course, it was my job to submit loans to my employer, to get the loans approved. The “investors” wanted me to work with the people who were going to buy homes from them; unknown to me at the time, at inflated prices. It was a great marriage; they would refer customers to me and I would get the loans approved – everybody was happy.
One day, the real estate investors delivered, what I suspected to be, fake pay stubs on behalf of one of their buyers. The documents indicated that one of their buyers made more money than he actually did. I suspected it right away because the pay stubs showed that this buyer made exactly the right amount to qualify for the loan.
Here’s where the wheels came off for me; in fact it changed the course of my entire life. After about a half dozen justifications, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t need to blow the whistle on these guys for delivering, what could have been, fake pay stubs.
Among the justifications, I told myself that even if these were fake pay stubs, it wasn’t real fraud. Real fraud was the S & L scandal or Michael Milken or Michael Douglas’ character in that one movie, Wall Street.
“Real fraud”, I told myself, “was when someone forges a signature. In fact, I had witnessed another employee do just that, at – my – place – of – employment!” I had seen a co-worker of mine hold up a signed document to the window and place another document over it, so as to make the second document transparent enough to trace on it the signature from the first.
I convinced myself that receiving, what might have been, fake documents, was not tantamount to fraud. And even if it was fraud it was most certainly not being committed by me.
So there it was. I was comparing my actions, or inactions, with where I had set the bar for fraud and unethical behavior. In part, my threshold was set by my perception of acceptable behavior that I’d learned about in school, digested from the media, from the multi-million dollar scams that I’d seen on the big screen, etc. And probably most influential of all, was the real fraud that I’d witnessed in my own office. Looking back, I believe that this kept me completely below my threshold of unethical behavior. Well, there was also a big element of denial.
This is not the, “I did it so therefore you are going to do it,” syndrome. I don’t blame anyone but myself for the decisions I made in the 1990’s. In fact, I believe that the vast majority of you move about your busy work day, all the while, staying on the straight path; even the men and women who watch the TV.
In reality, for many of you news watchers and movie goers, the tales of Madoff and the other big bad-sters of our day, serve as deterrents. That is, these headlines remind you to stay honest and out of the spotlight. It even keeps you from becoming the dude who pads his expense report.
To some, I have become the go-to guy to ask whether or not something they did (or one of their “friends” did), is unethical or fraudulent. Over the past 8 years, I have noticed that people are more and more willing to put certain fraudulent activity, in the business-as-usual category.
These are my observations which are obviously not based on a scientific survey or study. My connection between the sensationalization of big bad-sters and the recent increase in the social tolerance of unethical behavior is, at the very least, a phenomena worth keeping in check.
Truth be told, the Federal Criminal Code hasn’t become more lenient, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are still stiff and the FBI is still is as relentless as ever. Social tolerance may fluctuate, but a bad-ster is a bad-ster, in the eyes of the law.
Dirty Bad-sters
Bernie Madoff, Washington Mutual, Goldman Sachs, the sub-prime mortgage rip off; new bad-sters pop up every day. Corruption is just not as shocking as it once was. These headlines have become the standard, and unfortunately for some, have become the new threshold of what constitutes fraud.
On an intellectual level, we know that the media presents us with big-name stories of multi-million dollar scams. I don’t blame them for telling me when big-names steal gobs of cash. It’s news worthy. But has this caused us to lower the bar?
CNN hasn’t told me about dude who slipped in an extra receipt on his expense report; or the insurance fella who submitted a claim for services not rendered. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t tell me about the loan officer who excluded derogatory info from a loan application so that his borrower’s loan would get approved.
This is not shocking. No name headlines with small dollar amounts aren’t that interesting, and frankly won’t sell a lot of ad space. But I will admit, I’d probably read a story with the headline, Dude Slips in Receipt.
It’s normal for us to compare good and bad things based where we perceive the bar is set.
Here is a, somewhat, related analogy: Just the other night, my wife and I were out with a few other married couples. One of the women announced that it was her 19th year wedding anniversary. She went on to say that she met her wonderful husband in college, in Iowa. One of our tactless friends blurted out, “You picked him? Well, I suppose he wasn’t a bad choice considering the selection in Iowa.”
Apparently, this woman’s husband did not pass the threshold of where the big mouth set his bar. In his micro-society she was good and her spouse was bad. His standard has obviously been influenced by his life experiences. Have people have gotten better looking lately? Perhaps he attended a college full of gorgeous co-eds, or maybe reads a lot of GQ magazines.
We all compare “apples”, perhaps subconsciously, which influences our choices. As those apples change, so does our threshold of an acceptable apple. I’m most concerned with ethics and fraud and not so much about spouses and fruit. It’s not so crazy to differentiate and rate the acceptability of the following: Bernie Madoff gets sent to prison for a multi-million dollar fraud scheme vs. all I’m doing is “helping” a customer get approved for a loan.
I have a personal example.
When I was a loan officer in 1994, I met a group of real estate investors. They wanted me to be their loan officer. Of course, it was my job to submit loans to my employer, to get the loans approved. The “investors” wanted me to work with the people who were going to buy homes from them; unknown to me at the time, at inflated prices. It was a great marriage; they would refer customers to me and I would get the loans approved – everybody was happy.
One day, the real estate investors delivered, what I suspected to be, fake pay stubs on behalf of one of their buyers. The documents indicated that one of their buyers made more money than he actually did. I suspected it right away because the pay stubs showed that this buyer made exactly the right amount to qualify for the loan.
Here’s where the wheels came off for me; in fact it changed the course of my entire life. After about a half dozen justifications, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t need to blow the whistle on these guys for delivering, what could have been, fake pay stubs.
Among the justifications, I told myself that even if these were fake pay stubs, it wasn’t real fraud. Real fraud was the S & L scandal or Michael Milken or Michael Douglas’ character in that one movie, Wall Street.
“Real fraud”, I told myself, “was when someone forges a signature. In fact, I had witnessed another employee do just that, at – my – place – of – employment!” I had seen a co-worker of mine hold up a signed document to the window and place another document over it, so as to make the second document transparent enough to trace on it the signature from the first.
I convinced myself that receiving, what might have been, fake documents, was not tantamount to fraud. And even if it was fraud it was most certainly not being committed by me.
So there it was. I was comparing my actions, or inactions, with where I had set the bar for fraud and unethical behavior. In part, my threshold was set by my perception of acceptable behavior that I’d learned about in school, digested from the media, from the multi-million dollar scams that I’d seen on the big screen, etc. And probably most influential of all, was the real fraud that I’d witnessed in my own office. Looking back, I believe that this kept me completely below my threshold of unethical behavior. Well, there was also a big element of denial.
This is not the, “I did it so therefore you are going to do it,” syndrome. I don’t blame anyone but myself for the decisions I made in the 1990’s. In fact, I believe that the vast majority of you move about your busy work day, all the while, staying on the straight path; even the men and women who watch the TV.
In reality, for many of you news watchers and movie goers, the tales of Madoff and the other big bad-sters of our day, serve as deterrents. That is, these headlines remind you to stay honest and out of the spotlight. It even keeps you from becoming the dude who pads his expense report.
To some, I have become the go-to guy to ask whether or not something they did (or one of their “friends” did), is unethical or fraudulent. Over the past 8 years, I have noticed that people are more and more willing to put certain fraudulent activity, in the business-as-usual category.
These are my observations which are obviously not based on a scientific survey or study. My connection between the sensationalization of big bad-sters and the recent increase in the social tolerance of unethical behavior is, at the very least, a phenomena worth keeping in check.
Truth be told, the Federal Criminal Code hasn’t become more lenient, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are still stiff and the FBI is still is as relentless as ever. Social tolerance may fluctuate, but a bad-ster is a bad-ster, in the eyes of the law.
Jerome Mayne is a published writer, author of the book Diary of a White Collar Criminal and an international keynote speaker. His training tools have been added to many corporate libraries, and have helped thousands of business professionals make the right decisions when the right decisions aren’t easy, and stay out of prison.
He can be reached at jmayne@fraudcon.com, 612-919-3007 or www.fraudcon.com.
Bernie Madoff, Washington Mutual, Goldman Sachs, the sub-prime mortgage rip off; new bad-sters pop up every day. Corruption is just not as shocking as it once was. These headlines have become the standard, and unfortunately for some, have become the new threshold of what constitutes fraud.
On an intellectual level, we know that the media presents us with big-name stories of multi-million dollar scams. I don’t blame them for telling me when big-names steal gobs of cash. It’s news worthy. But has this caused us to lower the bar?
CNN hasn’t told me about dude who slipped in an extra receipt on his expense report; or the insurance fella who submitted a claim for services not rendered. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t tell me about the loan officer who excluded derogatory info from a loan application so that his borrower’s loan would get approved.
This is not shocking. No name headlines with small dollar amounts aren’t that interesting, and frankly won’t sell a lot of ad space. But I will admit, I’d probably read a story with the headline, Dude Slips in Receipt.
It’s normal for us to compare good and bad things based where we perceive the bar is set.
Here is a, somewhat, related analogy: Just the other night, my wife and I were out with a few other married couples. One of the women announced that it was her 19th year wedding anniversary. She went on to say that she met her wonderful husband in college, in Iowa. One of our tactless friends blurted out, “You picked him? Well, I suppose he wasn’t a bad choice considering the selection in Iowa.”
Apparently, this woman’s husband did not pass the threshold of where the big mouth set his bar. In his micro-society she was good and her spouse was bad. His standard has obviously been influenced by his life experiences. Have people have gotten better looking lately? Perhaps he attended a college full of gorgeous co-eds, or maybe reads a lot of GQ magazines.
We all compare “apples”, perhaps subconsciously, which influences our choices. As those apples change, so does our threshold of an acceptable apple. I’m most concerned with ethics and fraud and not so much about spouses and fruit. It’s not so crazy to differentiate and rate the acceptability of the following: Bernie Madoff gets sent to prison for a multi-million dollar fraud scheme vs. all I’m doing is “helping” a customer get approved for a loan.
I have a personal example.
When I was a loan officer in 1994, I met a group of real estate investors. They wanted me to be their loan officer. Of course, it was my job to submit loans to my employer, to get the loans approved. The “investors” wanted me to work with the people who were going to buy homes from them; unknown to me at the time, at inflated prices. It was a great marriage; they would refer customers to me and I would get the loans approved – everybody was happy.
One day, the real estate investors delivered, what I suspected to be, fake pay stubs on behalf of one of their buyers. The documents indicated that one of their buyers made more money than he actually did. I suspected it right away because the pay stubs showed that this buyer made exactly the right amount to qualify for the loan.
Here’s where the wheels came off for me; in fact it changed the course of my entire life. After about a half dozen justifications, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t need to blow the whistle on these guys for delivering, what could have been, fake pay stubs.
Among the justifications, I told myself that even if these were fake pay stubs, it wasn’t real fraud. Real fraud was the S & L scandal or Michael Milken or Michael Douglas’ character in that one movie, Wall Street.
“Real fraud”, I told myself, “was when someone forges a signature. In fact, I had witnessed another employee do just that, at – my – place – of – employment!” I had seen a co-worker of mine hold up a signed document to the window and place another document over it, so as to make the second document transparent enough to trace on it the signature from the first.
I convinced myself that receiving, what might have been, fake documents, was not tantamount to fraud. And even if it was fraud it was most certainly not being committed by me.
So there it was. I was comparing my actions, or inactions, with where I had set the bar for fraud and unethical behavior. In part, my threshold was set by my perception of acceptable behavior that I’d learned about in school, digested from the media, from the multi-million dollar scams that I’d seen on the big screen, etc. And probably most influential of all, was the real fraud that I’d witnessed in my own office. Looking back, I believe that this kept me completely below my threshold of unethical behavior. Well, there was also a big element of denial.
This is not the, “I did it so therefore you are going to do it,” syndrome. I don’t blame anyone but myself for the decisions I made in the 1990’s. In fact, I believe that the vast majority of you move about your busy work day, all the while, staying on the straight path; even the men and women who watch the TV.
In reality, for many of you news watchers and movie goers, the tales of Madoff and the other big bad-sters of our day, serve as deterrents. That is, these headlines remind you to stay honest and out of the spotlight. It even keeps you from becoming the dude who pads his expense report.
To some, I have become the go-to guy to ask whether or not something they did (or one of their “friends” did), is unethical or fraudulent. Over the past 8 years, I have noticed that people are more and more willing to put certain fraudulent activity, in the business-as-usual category.
These are my observations which are obviously not based on a scientific survey or study. My connection between the sensationalization of big bad-sters and the recent increase in the social tolerance of unethical behavior is, at the very least, a phenomena worth keeping in check.
Truth be told, the Federal Criminal Code hasn’t become more lenient, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are still stiff and the FBI is still is as relentless as ever. Social tolerance may fluctuate, but a bad-ster is a bad-ster, in the eyes of the law.
Jerome Mayne is a published writer, author of the book Diary of a White Collar Criminal and an international keynote speaker. His training tools have been added to many corporate libraries, and have helped thousands of business professionals make the right decisions when the right decisions aren’t easy, and stay out of prison.
He can be reached at jmayne@fraudcon.com, 612-919-3007 or www.fraudcon.com.
