Essential Industry Terms Explained

"Drop Address" - What is it? A "drop address" is the address where fraudsters send goods purchased illegally (for instance with a stolen card). While having a secondary address or P.O. box is...

The practice of rummaging through someone’s garbage bins to find personal information (account numbers, PINs, passwords). Fraudsters often combine digital attacks and real-life information gathering....

Duplicate Payment schemes are types of fraud where the fraudster will attempt to have someone pay a second time for goods or services already paid for a first time.

E-commerce or electronic commerce refers to all transactions that occur on an electronic device between customers and businesses. It can be divided into consumer-to-consumer, business to consumer and...

E-commerce applications are apps that allow consumers to choose the product they want purchase on the Internet. These applications are supported both by mobile phones and personal computers, and...

Sometimes, consumers don’t get the product that they order using an e-commerce application or website, which is referred to as e-commerce fraud. For instance, if a person orders an iPhone and gets an...

An e-commerce platform is a type of software technology that provides merchants or e-commerce businesses an online store or shop from which customers can easily purchase what they want. An example of...

eID services are used to identify users on a specific platform and are often used by key systems to ensure the security of the central building blocks of a Digital Single Market and cross-boarder...

Europay Mastercard Visa or EMV is an international standard for debit and credit cards which are based on chip card technology. EMV cards are able to make in-person transactions safer than before,...

The certification of EV SSL is actually the symbol of the highest level of trust for a virtual business. All modern browsers support a completely new technology, known as EV or Extended Validation...

Electronic Data Interchange is an electronic communication method that provides standards for exchanging data. By adhering to the same standard, companies using EDI can transfer data from one branch...

An email address is a unique measure or identifier for a specific email account. It is used by people-- both to receive and send e-mail using the Internet. To send messages effectively, you need an...

Email fraud is a rather popular and inexpensive way to commit fraud. Fraudsters distribute fraudulent emails or messages to a variety of victims, generally with the goal of attaining their passwords,...

Email spam, also known as junk mail, is an unsolicited email that is sent to many people. Generally, there is no meaning to this mail and is generally meant to bring the receiver to a certain website.

Email Tumbling - What is It? Email tumbling is a way of filtering incoming emails using variations of a specific gmail address. For tumbling an email, users only have to insert a "+" or "." into the...

Email verification is a popular method of authentication that will ask a consumer to verify that it is really them trying to make a purchase by sending them an email with a link attached. Clicking on...

Employment scams refers to when advertising scammers create fake job listings in order to collect personal information of applicants, such as payment credentials and other types of information that...

An emulator is a special kind of robot that copies human activity when it comes to purchasing a service or product. Examples of emulators include targeted scripts which are aimed at buying a...

A method of coding data, using an algorithm, to protect it from unauthorized access. There are many types of data encryption, which are the basis of network security. Encryption is the process of...

End-to-End Encryption refers to the protection of confidentiality and integrity which is not interrupted in terms of data by encoding them at the time of sending and decoding them at the end of the...

Endpoint Authentication refers to a security system that aims to verify the identities of devices which are remotely connected along with their users like PDAs or personal digital assistant or a...

Endpoint protection refers to a variety of solutions that are used to protect and detect a compromise of the last user's computer device linked to the mobile device and laptop, etc. Generally,...

Exclusivity refers to a contractual clause in which one party grants another party a right to use a specific business function. It means that the other party can now use the function as it likes.

Fast Identity Online is a set of open technical specifications for mechanisms of authenticating users to online services that do not depend on passwords. FIDO authentication seeks to use the native...

What is FRAML? FRAML is a portmanteau of “Fraud (Prevention)” and “Anti-Money Laundering” (AML) and recognizes the significant overlap between fraud prevention and anti-money laundering efforts....

Facebook is a social media or networking platform that uses the internet for its operation. It allows people to connect with others by creating an account and chatting with them over the internet....

Facial Recognition is a type of biometric check used to identify the person and unlock the system. It focuses on the facial structure of a person and identifies whether the person has the necessary...

Fake merchandise includes products and services that are not authorized by the original company, but are sold with the name of the company. Fake merchandise is often used on the Internet through...

A fake check is normally used by a fraudster with either a duplicate signature or writing for withdrawing cash from bank. This is a fairly common type of scam that is done by obtaining the necessary...

Fake Account Entries refer to the input of wrong or misleading information in terms of financial statements. It is ethically wrong to include fake account entries in software or in a book that has to...

False data refers to information which is not accurate, especially the information which, in a specific context, differs directly from the required information.

False declines are generally referred to as false positives that occur when an actual transaction is apparently flagged by a protection system of a merchant and it is declined inadvertently. Often,...

False documents are documents created with incorrect information that cannot be used for their required purposes because the document does not contain the necessary data. These documents are created...

What are false expense claims? Many organizations focus on external threats to fight fraud. However, internal threats can be just as devastating. Employees who feel entitled to something or who take...

False Expense Reimbursements occur when an employee falsely inflates costs associated with their work, so that when they ask for reimbursements they will be given more money than they should.

False Financial Statements describe when a person falsifies income reports, balance sheets, and/or creates fake cash-flow statements to deceive the people who receive them. The purpose of this...

False Front Merchants is when a company appears to have valid businesses, but actually, all are just fronts for a number of various fraud schemes. The ability of some fraudsters to make fake...

What is False Identity Fraud? False identity fraud occurs when a person creates a fake identity to commit criminal activities. Fraudsters commit identity fraud to apply for credit under false...

False Invoices could be described as the situation where a person makes an invoice that does not relate to a real sale or payment and is used to get money dishonestly and undeservedly.

A false negative is when a fraudulent transaction fails  to be flagged as fraudulent, and gets through a system's fraud detection. It is the opposite of a false positive.

False Positives, also known as “false declines” or “sales insults” appear when financial organizations or merchants decline valid orders. False positives are primarily caused by a businesses...

A false report is created when somebody knowingly reports a crime that did not occur, or knowingly reports details of a crime incorrectly.

False Reporting is when someone creates documents with false financial information and submits this information as legitimate.

A contractor or supplier may commit fraud by knowingly submitting false, inflated or duplicated invoices with the intent to defraud the company they have been hired by. The contractor may act alone,...

A false travel claim is when a person falsely claims they traveled by a certain method, and then asks to be reimbursed for paying for that method. An example would be if an employee said they had to...

False Vendors refer to any scheme that is completed by creating fake vendors. This can have multiple uses for fraud; for one, the fraudster can send invoices to companies asking for payments on a...

Falsified Hours is the term for when an employee records themselves as having worked more hours than they truly have in order to be paid for work they have not done.

Familiar fraud describes when a customer asks for a chargeback instead of pursuing a refund from the merchant they made the purchase with, with the purpose of keeping their funds while also getting...

A federated identity in information technology refers to process of linking a person's electronic identity and attributes across multiple distinct identity management systems. Federated identity is...

In a fictitious refund scheme, an employee processes a transaction as if a customer were returning merchandise, even though there is no actual return. Since the transaction is fictitious, no...

Financial Crime is a category of crime that is performed against property, comprising of the illegal conversion of the property rights to the personal use and benefits of the fraudster. Financial...

Fingerprint Recognition is one of the most popularly used biometrics, and so far it is considered the most secure authentication method. Fingerprint Recognition refers to the automatic process of...

Fintech fraud refers to any fraud that takes place that is related to fintech in some way. Fintech fraud scandals can involve peer-to-peer financing platforms as well as crowd funding platforms, and...

A firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. You can implement a firewall in either hardware or software form, or a combination of both. Firewalls...

Food fraud is the activity of changing, perverting, mislabeling, replacing or interfering with any food product at any theme alongside the farm–to–table food supply–chain. The fraud may appear within...

Forged signatures are signatures created to look like very similar or the same as another's signature, but that was not created/signed by the signature's original creator. This is done to provide...

Fortune teller scam, also known as the “bujo”, is a type of confidence game. The basic feature of the scam involves diagnosing the victim (the "mark") with some sort of secret problem that only the...

Fraud can be described as a consciously dishonest and/or illegal act done generally for personal gain, or to afflict another. Fraud can violate civil law, and cause the loss of cash, property, or...

Fraud is defined generally as the wrongful or criminal act to deceive someone for one's own financial or personal gain. Legal definitions of fraud vary across countries, at the federal and state...

A fraud analyst is someone who investigates forgery and theft within customers' accounts and transactions on behalf of a bank or a financial institution. They track and monitor the bank's...

Insurance corporations, banks, shops, and a mass of other companies employ fraud analysts to identify and prevent fraudulent activities, and if an organization dedicates a group of their employees to...

Fraud detection is a set of activities undertaken to prevent money or property from being obtained through false pretenses. Fraud detection is applied to many industries such as banking or insurance....

A fraud examiner is a highly qualified professional who investigates cases of criminal and civil fraud. Fraud examiners can be certified to prove their expertise within the field of fraud and fraud...

Losses to online payment fraud are continually increasing, expected to grow from 41 billion US to 48 Billion USD in 2023 and increase by 131% over the next five years. With smart devices becoming...

Fraud Guidelines are the practical guidelines put in place to help prevent, detect, and investigate any type of fraud that may occur within a business's dealings.

Fraud jobs are the category of jobs that work in the fraud field, such as a fraud specialist, forensic accountant, forensic audit manager, forensic director, senior auditor, risk assurance and risk...

Fraud Lawyers are lawyers who practice law in the criminal fraud and civil areas. These lawyers assist companies who have been affected by fraud performed by their employees or other party by...

Fraud Management Services are defined as the associations that provide support in reviewing and resolving all potential fraudulent operations of a company, assisting the company in the immediate...

What is Fraud Prevention? Fraud Prevention refers to the strategies, measures, and systems put in place to detect and mitigate fraudulent activities or behaviors aimed at deceiving or stealing from...

A number of merchants incorporate fraud protection software within their loss-prevention approaches. These automatic software programs support the companies to identify hazardous transactions in real...

A Fraud Prevention Specialist is a person in a company who has the responsibility of taking care of certain assets and ensuring they remain protected from any potentially fraudulent actions. Their...

A Fraud Response Plan is a policy aimed at ensuring that effective and timely action is taken in the event of fraud occurring. A Fraud Response Plan gives employees the details of the entire...

Fraud Ring A Fraud Ring could be described as an organization which performs activities with the intention to defraud or take advantage of other people. This organization might be involved in any...

A fraud risk assessment is a tool used by business management to identify and understand risks to their business and weaknesses in controls that present a fraud risk to the organization. Once a risk...

There are two types of Fraud Risk Profiles: that of employees who abuse company assets to obtain personal benefits, and that of people who create the fraud plan in order to give the impression that...

Fraud Schemes are schemes that fraudsters have created to execute a criminal or fraudulent scenario, in order to obtain the personal benefits derived from it. Corruption, money laundering, skimming...

Fraud Score A Fraud Score is an informational tool that helps you gauge risk involved with orders before processing. This is done by identifying traits and historical trends associated with...

Fraud Screening generally refers to a checking system that identifies potentially fraudulent transactions. Fraud screening helps reduce fraudulent credit card transactions, reduce the number of...

Fraud Statistics are reports produced by companies and organizations that detail things like the numbers of fraudulent transactions that have occurred in a period, what kinds of fraud took place, and...

The Fraud Triangle is a simple framework that is useful to understand a worker's decision to commit workplace or occupational fraud. The fraud triangle consists of three components (sides) which,...

Fraud on the court occurs when the judicial machinery itself has been tainted, such as when an attorney, who is an officer of the court, is involved in the perpetration of a fraud or makes material...

Fraud Waste and Abuse is typically a term most commonly used in government and healthcare and refers to several types of negligent and possibly criminal behavior. As defined by United States Code...

Fraud Waste and Abuse Policy is the set of policies that a business or organization likely have in place so that if fraud or waste occurs within that entity, it has a set of procedures in place to...

Fraud Waste and Abuse Training is training that helps you to understand the definitions of fraud, waste and abuse, identify the principles underlying state and federal laws associated with fraud,...

What is Fraud vs. Abuse? Fraud and abuse are related concepts often used in the context of unethical or illegal activities, but they have distinct meanings. Fraud: Fraud involves intentional...

In today’s world, the rapid development of technology can make it difficult to fight fraud and forgery, especially for legal authorities. Knowing what charges come with each, and primarily how to...

Understanding Fraud and Theft: Key Differences, Types, and Preventive Solutions Fraud and theft are both deceptive practices that involve unlawfully acquiring someone else's assets, but they differ...

Fraudulent apps are apps that say they provide some kind of service or entertainment, but their actual purpose is to download malware onto a device, or to discretely attain sensitive information....

What is Friendly Fraud? Friendly Fraud, also referred to as first-party fraud, can take many forms, but typically involves an actual consumer obtaining goods or services from a merchant, then...

What are Front Companies? Front companies are businesses that are created with the primary intention of concealing or disguising the true ownership, purpose, or activities of the individuals or...

What is Fullz? "Fullz" is fraudster slang for an information package containing a person’s real name, address, and form of ID,  or their "full information." Fullz can be considered a component of 3rd...

A GPS spoofer allows a device to pretend it is at a different location than its current location. This can be used to deceive services that attempt to track where you are located.

Gaming is defined as the act of playing electronic games, whether by the use of consoles, PCs, cell phones or other intermediate tools. Although gaming is usually an introverted recreation,...

Gaming fraud occurs when a fraudster deliberately misinforms somebody about information on a game, so that when that person makes a wager on the results of that game, they are doing so with incorrect...

What is a Geographical IP Detector? A geographical IP detector, or IP geolocation, allows you to trace where an IP address is located on the globe. By mapping the IP address geographically you can...

Geolocation refers to the identification of the geographic location of a user or computing device via a variety of data collection mechanisms. Typically, most geolocation services use network routing...

A ghost employee is a common ploy used in payroll fraud. A ghost employee is a person who is on an employer's payroll, but who does not actually work for the company, and perhaps does not exist at...