Build a Fraud System That Understands People — Especially the Ones on Your Payroll

Not all fraud comes from the outside.
Sometimes, it’s wearing your badge.
Logging into your systems.
Quoting your policies.

And it doesn’t always look malicious.
Sometimes it looks like a tired rep cutting corners.
Or a partner agent “bending” policy to hit quota.
Or a call center employee exploiting a gray area they know no one’s watching.

This is agent fraud — and it's the form of fraud no one wants to talk about.

But ignoring it won’t make it go away.

Agent Fraud Isn’t Rare — It’s Just Undetected

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners reports that 42% of internal fraud cases are committed by employees in customer-facing roles.¹

In high-volume support environments like call centers, telco provisioning teams, or BPO partners, this risk increases dramatically:

• Policy fatigue causes agents to override controls
• Quota pressure incentivizes shortcuts
• Process knowledge gives insiders a map to your blind spots

And unlike external fraudsters, agents often know exactly where you’re not looking.

The Psychology Behind It

Let’s be clear: most agents don’t start out looking to commit fraud.

They escalate into it — gradually — through what psychologists call moral disengagement (Bandura, 1990).²

Here’s how it happens:

1. Justification: “It’s just one refund.”
2. Minimization: “It’s not like we’re losing real money.”
3. Normalization: “Everyone here does this.”
4. Entitlement: “I’ve been underpaid and overworked for months.”

This is how internal fraud grows — not through malice, but through emotional erosion, unchecked incentives, and human rationalization.

What Fortza Does Differently

At Fortza, we don’t just detect “bad actors.” We detect risky environments — and the user behaviors that indicate when policy becomes performance theater.

We flag:

• Reps who initiate suspicious transactions only during low-supervision hours
• Usage patterns where one agent “finds the loophole” — and others mimic it
• Escalation patterns across systems that mirror documented fraud escalation paths
• High-friction workflows where the design of the system nudges agents toward the path of least resistance — even if it’s unauthorized

This is not surveillance. It’s behavioral insight at scale.

Why This Matters Now

Agent fraud is growing because the conditions are ripe:

• Increased outsourcing
• High turnover
• KPI pressure without process oversight
• Burnout and disengagement in frontline teams

Fortza gives you the ability to monitor behavioral friction, detect subtle escalation trends, and identify environments that breed fraud before it spreads.

This isn't just detection — it’s early intervention.

The Strategic Imperative

If your fraud strategy doesn’t account for agent fraud, you don’t have a complete strategy.

Because fraud doesn’t just come from the outside anymore.
And trust, once broken internally, is 10x harder to recover.

Let’s Build Smarter Internal Defenses

If you're leading fraud operations, risk management, or enterprise support at scale, ask yourself:

• Where could my own systems be teaching reps to exploit gaps?
• Are we equipping our frontline teams to make the right choice under pressure?
• Do we even know when agents are misusing access?

Fortza can help you answer those questions — before your reputation’s on the line.

Let’s build fraud detection that understands not just your users, but your teams.

#InternalFraud #AgentFraud #BehavioralSecurity #Fortza #EnterpriseRisk #InsiderThreat #FraudOps #DigitalTrust

References

1. ACFE (2023). Report to the Nations: Occupational Fraud and Abuse
2. Bandura, A. (1990). Selective Activation and Disengagement of Moral Control, Journal of Social Issues
3. Deloitte (2023). Internal Fraud: Managing the Human Factor in the Digital Age
4. Harvard Business Review (2021). Why Good Employees Commit Fraud