Don’t miss this invaluable opportunity to further protect your business from fraud and learn about industry perceptions.

Moore Stephens – accountants and advisors, in conjunction with the AADA has been busy conducting an industry-wide survey to better understand automotive dealer perceptions towards fraud. The results will be released at the AADA National Dealer Convention.

While fraud is a continuous threat to the general economy, automotive retailers are particularly at risk.

Given the number of departments within a typical automotive dealership, each with its own processes and controls – preventing and detecting fraud for retailers can be challenging.

An example of the damage fraud can cause for Dealers was recently witnessed in New Zealand. The perpetrator, an automotive retail manager, misappropriated cheques given as payment for vehicles, telling customers to leave the payee details blank. She then wrote cash on the cheques and lodged them into her personal bank account. Over a four year period, a total of 60 fraudulent deposits were made. The fraud was concealed by re-depositing funds and allocating against the oldest debtors, ensuring that they did not become old enough to raise suspicion.

This example highlights how easily fraud can be committed as well as the related financial cost to the business. In this case, more than $1m was stolen, which was used to fund an exuberant lifestyle for the culprit.

What’s worse is that this incident could have been prevented if proper segregation of duties had been in place in the finance department.

The purpose of the industry-wide survey arranged by AADA and Moore Stephens is to increase  the awareness of auto dealers towards fraud. This will help us better understand how fraud may be committed and help businesses identify system weaknesses and implement appropriate controls.

Moore Stephens Automotive will present the results of the survey at the AADA National Dealer Convention in July.

Attendees will not only find out first-hand about the insights gathered, but will also have the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback on the survey results.