I read with obvious interest and evaluation, many news articles currently reporting the upward and accelerating trend of fraud losses across industry sectors, types of fraud perpetrated, and delivery channels exposed to such risks - but one key statistic always seems to be missing, when exactly did these loans actually originate? As the credit squeeze hits hard against those individuals who have been funding extravagant lifestyles or those individuals paying everyday bills; repaying personal loan and mortgage instalments, and credit card balances has now had to come to a sharp stop. Has the 1st party (also known as "soft" or "advances") fraud and bad debt "mish-mash" of internal reporting finally become so intertwined that we're unable to truly discover the true depth of the problem and WHEN it actually happened as we continue to report huge problematic numbers to the world?

We know the loans didn't all originate "yesterday" as lending is now at an all time low....so the natural assumption is these record fraud levels may be actually related to 2007,2006,2005,2004 and beyond accounts that have only now been wiped off the balance sheet so as to blend in with the background of the fraud reporting season. The next assumption is what % of the portfolio will turn toxic in 2009?

The internal and external, micro and macro analysis of write off date and/or transaction date together with "the true definition of fraud" seem to be a continual debate that will continue for the next few generations of fraud and risk managers throughout the world.... But as they say reporting numbers is one thing....doing something about them is another! One thing seems certain, fraud trends are as cyclical as the sun rising!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing they say, so is learning from past experiences, so let's start looking now for our future problems as they might already be on our books?!