5 Anti-Fraud Professionals Share Their Advice for Remote Interviewing
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GUEST BLOGGER
Mason Wilder, CFE
Senior Research Specialist
Business disruptions occurring globally are causing significant shifts in how everyone, including fraud examiners, approach their jobs and duties. With many professionals working remotely for the first time, one of the most significant changes for fraud examiners might be the inability to conduct in-person interviews due to COVID-19.
One of the most impressive things about the ACFE membership is the wide range of roles, backgrounds and types of professional experience represented. Some members are not letting COVID-19 restrictions affect their tried-and-true processes, while for others, remote interviewing has been part of their repertoire well before a global pandemic impacted the profession.
We recently asked our members to share their perspectives on remote interviewing. Here’s what they had to say.
It’s not an option to postpone
“My company utilizes Teams (often using the record and video features), Skype, and local staff with guidance to conduct remote interviews as our cases are international. It is not an option to cancel or postpone this need. Our experience has been good. We follow the same steps as our normal investigations (which has always included remote circumstances). With video capability, you definitely see the emotions and reactions of witnesses and alleged parties.”
Leslie N. Lowe, CFE
We are strongly against it
“We are confronted with the pressure of our management to do remote interviewing, mainly because it would save time and travel. However, we are strongly against it because you cannot see/feel the emotions, the hesitations of the interviewee. There are important small things to detect if someone is telling the truth or not. So we are looking for arguments to help convince our management that remote interviewing is not the right thing to do.
We continue doing the interviews at the location of the employee, taking into account all the necessary precautions (social distance, masks), even during the lockdown (we received a written authorization to do this). But this situation raised the discussion to think about remote interviewing in the future. Remote interviewing of a witness might be a good example. However, often in our situation the witness is working in the same location, and we handle two interviews directly after each other (first the witness and immediately afterwards the suspect). This is to avoid providing them with the opportunity to talk to each other in between.”
Frank De Bondt, RFA
Financial Crime Expert at Bpost
We’ve always performed remote interviews
“Our team has always performed remote interviews since we have locations across the world and it is just not feasible or cost-effective to be traveling all over the place. And now, we are unable to travel per corporate policy, so that option has been removed completely, where it was once used for significant investigations.
We try to have a witness physically present, whether it is HR (who are still allowed to travel on a limited basis), a local manager or other nearby company staff. You can still hear hesitation in voices and can certainly identify outright lies when you have evidence to the contrary, and the witness can be cognizant of, and inform you of, any telltale physical signals.
Zoom is an option that we have utilized recently when the interviewees were working from home and, therefore, no company personnel were present. In those cases, we try to have one person whose video and mic are turned off who is acting solely as a note taker and observer. The interviewee is not focused on them, but they can observe facial expressions and demeanor and note these in the body of the notes. The difficulty here is lack of control over the interviewee's environment. For example, you cannot require them to sit across from you and face you, and the lighting may be poor.”
Valerie Scarantino CFE, CPA
Manager, Ethics & Compliance – Investigations at UGI Corporation
There are real advantages to remote interviewing
“There are in fact several real advantages to doing interviews remotely. My team, we are using MS Teams, it's been rolled out throughout the organisation, so everyone can use it. Bandwidth was one of my original concerns, but practice shows that that's only an issue in a minority of cases.
What you do have is a built-in recording function, and I feel that the threshold for using it is much lower than in a physical setting. We usually introduce it by simply pointing out that it's more convenient than taking notes by hand and that everyone (including the interviewee) can later download a copy of the recording. So far, I've only had one case in which the person refused to have the interview recorded. I personally feel that recording has several advantages. You automatically have a verbatim, you don't need to go through the process of circulating the protocol after the fact (don't need to write it either), and interviewees usually forget that they are being recorded after around five minutes.
The whole thing frees up one person, who'd usually focus on taking notes, which can seriously tip the balance.
On the other hand, sure, you lose part of the ability to observe mimic and body language, and of course there are also new ways for interviewees to avoid confrontation (we recently had a case, where a suspect suddenly lost the connection for 10 minutes, when things got interesting. Didn't change anything in the end, though).”
Manuel Bern, Ph.D.
Head of Fraud Management at TUI AG
I’ve been doing this for years
“I've been doing remote interviews by telephone as part of my practice as a private investigator for years. The introduction of video conferencing hasn't really changed the process drastically in my opinion. Technology has introduced some new concerns and techniques, but the basics of interviewing haven't changed and can't be ignored. I think this is reflected in many of the previous comments.
Prepare, prepare, prepare. A lack of preparation is a major reason an interview fails to meet its goal.
Part of that preparation is to make sure you are rested. This is important when different time zones are involved. Interviewing is hard work and it's hard to focus if you are tired.
If possible, record the interview.
Listen more than you talk.
Embrace the silence. This relates to the previous point and is based on the fact that most people are uncomfortable with silence and will try to fill that void with words. Let the interviewee fill the void and you might get some valuable information.
Don't put words in the interviewee's mouth or try to interpret what they are saying. Record the precise words used by the interviewee, not what you think they meant to say.”
Chuck Cochran, CFE
Private Investigator, C.R. Cochran & Associates
As expected, there are a diverse range of opinions, practices and experiences when it comes to remote interviewing. Each organization will have their own priorities and policies, and 2020 is providing the impetus to re-evaluate stances on remote interviewing to accommodate the current COVID-19 business environment and prepare for the future.
