No abstract

Online frauds have become a major problem in many countries with millions of victims from a wide diversity of scams committed in full or part online. This paper explores the extent and nature of this problem. Using data from depth interviews with 15 online fraud victims, 6 focus groups with a further 48 online fraud victims and interviews with 9 professional stakeholders involved in combating this problem. The paper explores why victims fall for online scams. It identifies a range of reasons including: the diversity of frauds, small amounts of money sought, authority and legitimacy displayed by scammers, visceral appeals, embarrassing frauds, pressure and coercion, grooming, fraud at a distance and multiple techniques.

No abstract

The importance and expansion of the role of private security officers in policing have led many countries to introduce special legislation to govern them. Many industrialized countries have a long history of such measures. The structures and standards introduced, however, have varied significantly. In North America generally minimal standards have been mandated that centre on character. In many European countries, by contrast, standards have been comprehensive, sometimes including hundreds of hours of mandatory training. In England and Wales, however, it was only in 2001 that such legal intervention was finally introduced, and the system that has begun to unfold has caused much debate on its effectiveness. Significant sectors have been excluded, and comprehensive standards of regulation have been rejected for an approach barely above North American standards of governance. This paper will examine the emerging English system of legal control. It will compare some of its features with those of other European countries and produce a league table from this. Reference will also be made to North America and Australia. It will be argued that the system to be introduced for security guards in England and Wales falls below European norms and needs to be more demanding if the performance and accountability of the industry are to be enhanced and the industry is to play the expanding role in policing that many increasingly expect.

There has been no clear evidence about whether organizational investment works for countering occupational fraud, and where to focus the investment if it works. In this regard, the present study explored the mediating roles of ethical culture and monitoring control in the 'organizational investment-occupational fraud' linkage. Using a sample of 392 Korean banking employees, a series of structural equation models were estimated. The results showed that the perception of increased investment in anti-occupational fraud enhanced two mediating variables, ethical culture and monitoring control. However, only the perception of an improved ethical culture was negatively related to the perceived frequency of occupational fraud with statistical significance. These findings imply that investing in ethical culture is more effective in preventing occupational fraud.