All You Need to Know About Fraud Private Investigation in Los Angeles

What is a Fraud Investigation?
What are the common types of Fraud in Los Angeles?
Can a Private investigator help with a Fraud Investigation? How?
What happens during Fraud Investigations?

This is a small portion of the questions that our private investigators in Los Angeles get from clients on a daily basis. We will try to answer them all in this blog post. Enjoy!

What is a Fraud Investigation?

A Fraud Investigation is an undertaking carried out by a private investigation expert that seeks, collects, and gathers any evidence of fraud for a case or a specific purpose.

A private investigator in Los Angeles seeks clues and evidence to determine whether a fraud has taken place. If fraud has been committed, an investigator will do a background check and try to uncover who committed the fraud, how, and when.

The investigation involves establishing that a fraud was committed and a suggestion of what should be done to those involved. After confirming the crime, the evidence is gathered, and the suspect is identified. If sufficient evidence is gathered, it is the option of the victim to pursue the suspect legally.

Common Types of Fraud

Insurance Fraud

Insurance fraud can be from the part of the buyer or seller of an insurance policy. Insurance fraud from the seller may include selling policies from non-existing companies, failing to submit premiums, or cutting policies to create more commissions. On the other hand, insurance fraud from the buyer may include exaggerated claims, falsified medical history, post-dated policies, fake death, kidnapping, or even murder.

Corporate Fraud

Corporate fraud refers to activities undertaken by individuals or organizations dishonestly or illegally for the individual or company to gain an advantage. Corporate fraud includes issues like theft of information, compromising and manipulating documents, misuse of trademarks or damaged reputation.

Financial Fraud

Financial fraud is witnessed when and an individual or company intentionally takes a deceptive act in monetary transactions with an individual or other company for personal gain. It includes actions such as tax evasion, public corruption, health care fraud, or telemarketing fraud.

Identity Theft

Identity theft occurs when someone or a company obtains another person’s information unlawfully and uses it to commit theft or fraud, such as looking for faulty loan or credit card applications, false withdrawals from bank accounts, or fraudulent use of calling cards.

Workers Compensation Fraud

This type of fraud may be perpetrated either by the employer or employee. Although some claims of this kind of fraud are legitimate, but can only be ascertained at the end of the investigation.

Internet Fraud

In Internet fraud, individuals or groups of people use the internet or software with internet access to defraud victims via the internet. This includes the collection of personal information or fraudulent transactions.

Corporate Slip and Fall

Corporate slip and fall fraud is a type of fraud in which a person organizes a fall purposely while in a store to file a claim. They will go as far as throwing water on the floor to ensure a slip.

Think of the times you walked into a store with your shoes wet. You clean the snow from your shoes while walking into the store. Some individuals will come to this point, and intentionally slip and fall and put the blame on the store. From many reports from our investigators in Los Angeles, not all claims are true. However, some can be!

Mortgage Fraud

Transit Fraud

This kind of fraud occurs when a passenger on the bus or streetcar intentionally refuses to sit down, hold the rail, and fall when the vehicle stops. Our Private Investigators in Los Angeles and many other cities like Santa Monica, Venice, Bel Air, and Pasadena have seen cases in which individuals allow their feet to be run over or stand in the way of the mirror!

Most transportation companies experience this type of fraud frequently as passengers of buses, subways, and streetcars will intentionally refuse to sit properly or hold onto a rail when the vehicle comes to a stop or endpoint in a terminal, which can result in injury.

Ticket Fraud

In ticket fraud, an individual will purchase a ticket that has already been used or doesn’t exist for a sporting event or concert. Often, the buyer gives the ticket to another person to use and come back to launch a claim.

Mechanical Repair Fraud

Sometimes, a mechanic will call for fixes that are overpriced or unnecessary. Although this is not common. Yet many individuals fall prey to mechanics who advise for services needed when the services are not required.

Expense Claim Fraud

Many people try to fraud their employer by claiming fake or inappropriate expenses. When employees account for company money that was not spent as expense money, they are committing fraud. Often, individuals will claim to stay in hotels costing $300 a night when, in reality, they stayed in cheap hotels and keep the remainder of the money in their personal pocket.

We see this often with large corporations that pay employees travel expenses for work purposes. The companies will pay a very generous amount per day to the employee for housing, food, and transportation. The employee ends up going to a lower-priced entity and turning in larger expensed items such as housing, food, and transportation. They usually collect the allocated money and keep it for themselves.

Theft of Inventory

The theft of inventory involves stealing physical items and misstatement of inventory records of a company. With theft of inventory, investigators will investigate whether employees are stealing products or over-order more than what the store needs. Sometimes employees will claim products are expired when they have not and taken them for personal use.

What Happens During Fraud Investigations?

During a fraud investigation, the fraud investigator begins with meeting the client to get the information to work with. This is preceded by launching investigation strategies. The private investigator carries out surveillance, asset searches, or background checks, depending on the type of fraud investigation and hands over any evidence obtained from the investigation with supporting claims.

What We Do (As PI Can Do for You)

As one of the leading private fraud investigators in Los Angeles, our trained professionals will obtain the necessary documentation to help determine whether fraud has occurred. If it has, our professionals will assess the damages associated with the fraud, track non-routine trends, review all relevant information available, interview the parties involved, and prepare the analyses.

Our experts will assist you in understanding the nature of the fraud that occurred, analyze internal and external controls, accounting processes, quantify the losses, and recommend changes to controls, policies that will help prevent fraud risks and assist you with strategies to recover what was lost. We can also act as consulting experts or provide independent expert witness testimony. For assistance with all matters related to fraud, allegations, investigation, and losses, Please call us at (310) 613 3755 or request a free consultation here