ACFE Does Not Recognize Child Welfare Fraud As Fraud

Recently, I received this email from American Certified Fraud Examiners

Dear Ms. Tran:

Would you like to co-author a book on bribery and corruption with me?


As your founder and chairman, I’ve published 20 books and nearly two hundred articles on fraud. Many of them have won awards. The last four books have been compilations of actual cases worked by ACFE members. The first piece was called Fraud Casebook: Lessons from the Bad Side of Business; the second was Computer Fraud Casebook: The Bytes that Bite; the third was Internet Fraud Casebook: The World Wide Web of Deceit; and the most recent was Financial Statement Fraud: Baking the Ledgers and Cooking the Books. They have generated significant royalties for the ACFE Foundation, a non-profit that provides scholarships for our budding fraud examiners.


We are now conceiving a fifth book of case studies, this time on bribery and corruption. Whether it will be submitted to our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, will depend entirely on the submissions we receive from people like you. So if you are interested, please read on.


What is required is an actual, completed case of bribery, corruption or kickbacks where you personally assisted in the investigation. You will be required to write the case study in a minimum of 3,500 and a maximum of 5,000 words. Your manuscript must be written in a prescribed format that we will furnish to you later. To avoid liability issues, you may not use real names of people or companies in your narrative.


The purpose of this book is to educate our members and the public on how bribery and corruption schemes work, how they are investigated and how they are prevented. We estimate that the final book will consist of about fifty cases. All royalties will be donated to the ACFE Foundation, a non-profit that provides college scholarships to the next generation of fraud-fighters. So there is no money in it for you (or me, for that matter), but you will receive ten free copies and be listed as a co-author. This can be a tremendous boost to your budding career as a writer and can do wonders for your résumé.


In order for your case to be considered for publication, corruption must have been a significant part of the scheme. Examples include:

• Kickbacks to employees from vendors
• Government officials accepting bribes
• Bankers soliciting an under-the-table fee for granting a loan
• Other corruption schemes, such as conflicts of interest

If you would like to impart your experience and lessons learned with your fellow anti-fraud professionals and the public, please share your story with us.

To apply, please click here and fill out the questionnaire by April 29, 2011. After reviewing submissions, I alone will select the final cases. Each story should maintain an element of human interest and be comprehensible to a general audience. Publishing a book such as this is a long and detailed process, but our ACFE editors will help you along the way. We hope by the fourth quarter of this year that the manuscript can be completed and the book published in the first quarter of 2012, if not before. The project manager at the ACFE will be Ms. Laura Hymes, whose e-mail address is lhymes@ACFE.com. All questions should be directed to her.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

  

Dr. Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA
Founder and Chairman
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

After laughing my ass off because a private organization has constructed a scheme to substantially profit off the work of its members without offering any financial compensation, I though I would have another good jolly by responding:

Interesting. Are you prepared to address child welfare fraud?

They actually responded.

Dear Ms. Tran,

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately at this time we are only considering cases that directly involve corruption.

All the best,

----------------

Laura Hymes

Research Editor

Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

World Headquarters - The Gregor Building

716 West Avenue - Austin, TX 78701

512-276-8120 (phone and fax)

www.acfe.com

I thought I would assist the responder preserve my name in her mind with this final retort:

The immediacy of your presumption demonstrates a woefully lack of sophistication in the subject matter of deontological ethics, more readily recognized as "corruption".


I have publicly shared your position on child welfare fraud.

That's right, the American Certified Fraud Examiners do not believe there is fraud and corruption in child welfare,

So, the moral of the story goes.... child abuse propaganda is not exclusive to contractual arms of the state!  Private organizations allow child welfare fraud to flourish, also.