fraud prevention

Fraud prevention: Can you afford to get it wrong?

The importance of call recording in fraud prevention

If you’re still unsure whether call recording software is the right choice for your business to aid fraud prevention, please take a moment to read this article.

If you follow the business and financial pages of any newspaper or news site you’ll no doubt have seen the recent accusations directed at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Former employee Mark Wright, who worked for the company following its takeover of NatWest in 2000, came out in support of former business clients of the bank who claim documentation and telephone transcripts were doctored, or forged completely. It’s alleged that these forgeries were created to cover up wrongdoing by the bank, which included undervaluing assets and manipulating clients with scare tactics.

Talking to the BBC, Mr. Wright said, “I had five individual customers who all came forward to me stating that the wording and conversations with this member of staff from group compliance were not their words, so effectively the telephone transcripts didn’t reflect what the customer was saying.” Two members of staff from the bank’s compliance unit subsequently left, but the issue was never investigated any further.

While RBS has rejected many requests for interview, it categorically denies any wrongdoing. It’s evident that this is likely to be an instance of ‘their word against ours’, particularly as there’s no finite way of proving whether a written transcript has been doctored or not. Step forward call recording software.

Call recording software is an important tool in the fight against fraud. Such technology can also be used during complaint and dispute handling, which means that situations should never escalate to the point they have during the RBS case. You see, while written transcripts can be doctored with little evidence, voice recordings are far harder to forge. We’d also like to highlight that call recording works both ways. We would strongly recommend businesses of every size implementing the technology, so that they have their own record of events should a dispute arise. Indeed, many businesses now do use call recording software for desk phones and mobile handsets, enabling employees to capture every call for future reference. Is your business one of them?

Although it will be of little comfort to RBS, or the aggrieved parties, call recording is a tool that all businesses should be relying upon in an age of sophisticated forgeries and mistrust. Had RBS, or its former clients, been able to present voice recordings in reply to these allegations, the outcome of events may have been different – and more satisfying for all involved.

James Hayward, the chief executive of a company called in to represent former clients of RBS, shared his musings with the BBC: “If anybody manipulates documents or falsifies documents or forges documents it can only be for two reasons, and that’s to perpetuate a fraud or to cover up a fraud. There’s no other reason for doing it. We have come across it. It’s just another instance of an unbelievably appalling sort of corporate conduct.” It’s far harder to argue with voice recordings and logs of call specifics, which is why we implore our clients to be vigilant in their choices of security software to aid fraud prevention.

If you’d like to read more about the accusations against RBS the original story can be found here and here. For more about the benefits of call recording and fraud prevention please give us a call on 0333 0022 440 or contact us. Large firms like RBS can often shake off such accusations; can your business afford to?

 

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