law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...

is an

intentional Intentions are mental states in which the agent commits themselves to a course of action. Having the plan to visit the zoo tomorrow is an example of an intention. The action plan is the ''content'' of the intention while the commitment is the ''a ...

deception Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight o ...

to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law or

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law ...

, or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or

mortgage fraud Mortgage fraud refers to an intentional misstatement, misrepresentation, or omission of information relied upon by an underwriter or lender to fund, purchase, or insure a loan secured by real property. Criminal offenses may be prosecuted in eith ...

, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements. In contrast, a

hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victim.

Types

* 419, see * involves promising a victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. * Affinitya form of in which the fraudster preys upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, language minorities, the elderly, or professional groups, by gaining their and using unsuspecting community leaders to help further the scheme. * Asset diversion, see *

Bait-and-switch Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the a ...

Bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a

financial institution Financial institutions, sometimes called banking institutions, are business entities that provide services as intermediaries for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial inst ...

, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other

. The term applies to actions that employ a scheme or artifice, as opposed to

bank robbery Bank robbery is the criminal act of stealing from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank- ...

or theft. *

Bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debto ...

concealment of assets by a debtor to avoid

liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redistrib ...

bankruptcy proceedings Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

; may include filing of false information, or multiple filings in different jurisdictions. *

Benefits Benefit or benefits may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Benefit'' (album), by Jethro Tull, 1970 * "Benefits" (''How I Met Your Mother''), a 2009 TV episode * ''The Benefit'', a 2012 Egyptian action film Businesses and organisation ...

(U.K.) * Billing *

Bride A bride is a woman who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bride's future spouse, (if male) is usually referred to as the '' bridegroom'' or just ''groom''. In Western culture, a bride may be attended by a maid, bri ...

* , Friendlywhere a consumer makes an

online shopping Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of t ...

purchase with their credit card, and then requests a

chargeback A chargeback is a return of money to a payer of a transaction, especially a credit card transaction. Most commonly the payer is a consumer. The chargeback reverses a money transfer from the consumer's bank account, line of credit, or credit ...

from the issuing bank after receiving the purchased goods or services. Once the chargeback is approved, this cancels the

financial transaction A financial transaction is an Contract, agreement, or communication, between a buyer and seller to exchange goods, Service (economics), services, or Asset, assets for payment. Any transaction involves a change in the status of the finances of two ...

, and the consumer receives a refund of the money they spent, and the merchant can be held accountable for the chargeback amount. *

Charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * C ...

* , kiting, paper hanginga category that involves the unlawful use of checks in order to illegally acquire or borrow funds that do not exist within the bank account balance or account-holder's legal ownership. * Communication, see * an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. They involve "voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", and benefit the fraudster ("con man") at the expense of the victim. *

Contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tr ...

* Conveyance, see *

Counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

ing * Cramminga scheme in which small charges are added to a bill by a third party without the subscriber's consent or knowledge. These may be disguised as a tax, fee, or bogus service. The crammer's intent is that the subscriber will overlook and pay these small charges without dispute. *

Creative accounting Creative accounting is a euphemism referring to accounting practices that may follow the letter of the rules of standard accounting practices, but deviate from the spirit of those rules with questionable accounting ethics—specifically distort ...

Credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the ...

and

Carding Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving surfaces covered with ...

Disability Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, ...

the receipt of payment(s) intended for the

disabled Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, ...

from a

government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

or private insurance company by one who should not be receiving them, or the receipt of a higher amount than one is entitled to. * Drug, see * any of several types of fraud in which older people are frequently targeted, including economic abuse, , , and sweepstakes. * , or election manipulation, voter fraud, vote riggingillegal interference with the process of an

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operat ...

, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of rival candidates, or both. *

Email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

Embezzlement Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...

* the attempt to defraud people seeking

employment Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any o ...

by giving them false hope of better employment, offering better working hours, more respectable tasks, future opportunities, or higher

wage A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', '' prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remune ...

s. *

Faked death A faked death, also called a staged death or pseudocide, is the act of an individual purposely deceiving other people into believing that the individual is dead, when the person is, in fact, still alive. People who commit pseudocide can do so by l ...

* Fee churning, see *

Fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Ferti ...

the failure on the part of a fertility doctor to obtain consent from a patient before inseminating her with his own sperm. * Foreign exchange, or "Forex"any trading scheme used to defraud

stock traders A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading equity securities and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an inves ...

by convincing them that they can expect to gain a high profit by trading in the

foreign exchange market The foreign exchange market (Forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all as ...

. (U.S., 2008) *

Forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forb ...

* Fortune telling frauda type of , based on a claim of secret or

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

information that only the grifter can detect or diagnose, and then charging the victim for ineffectual treatments. *

Fraud in the factum Fraud in the factum is a type of fraud where misrepresentation causes one to enter a transaction without accurately realizing the risks, duties, or obligations incurred.Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Pocket ed. 2001 pg. 293). This can be when the m ...

use of

misrepresentation In common law jurisdictions, a misrepresentation is a false or misleading '' R v Kylsant'' 931/ref> statement of fact made during negotiations by one party to another, the statement then inducing that other party to enter into a contract. The ...

to cause one to enter into a

without understanding the risks, duties, or obligations incurred. * Friendly, see * entering into a

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a compan ...

trade or other securities transaction with foreknowledge of a large, nonpublic, pending transaction that will influence the price of the underlying security. See also . * Health care, see *

Hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

* honest services *

Identity theft Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was c ...

, Impersonationunauthorized use of another person's personal identifying information, such as name, identifying number, or credit card number (1964) * any act committed to defraud an insurance process. It occurs when a claimant attempts to obtain some benefit or advantage they are not entitled to, or when an insurer knowingly denies some benefit that is due. See also . *

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

* * Job * Kiting, see * Long firm * ** any act committed to defraud a legitimate

lottery A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...

, such as a perpetrator attempting to win a jackpot prize through fraudulent means; or in the case of a stolen lottery ticket, to defraud an individual of their legitimately won prize. ** a type of that takes the form of informing an individual by email, letter or phone call that they have won a lottery prize. The victim is instructed to pay a fee to enable the non-existent winnings to be processed. * Mail and wire *

Marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

* Medicare * when a trader assigns a value to securities that does not reflect what they are actually worth, due to intentional mispricing, allowing him to obtain a higher bonus from his employer, where the bonus is calculated as a percentage of the value of his securities portfolio. See also . *

Mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

* Nigerian prince, see *

Odometer An odometer or odograph is an instrument used for measuring the distance traveled by a vehicle, such as a bicycle or car. The device may be electronic, mechanical, or a combination of the two (electromechanical). The noun derives from ancient Gr ...

the practice by the seller of a used vehicle of falsely representing the actual mileage of the vehicle to the buyer, by rolling back the

odometer An odometer or odograph is an instrument used for measuring the distance traveled by a vehicle, such as a bicycle or car. The device may be electronic, mechanical, or a combination of the two (electromechanical). The noun derives from ancient Gr ...

to make it appear that the vehicle has lower mileage than it actually does. * Overpayment * in parapsychology * Paper hanging, see *

Passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...

Paternity Paternity may refer to: *Father, the male parent of a (human) child *Paternity (law), fatherhood as a matter of law * ''Paternity'' (film), a 1981 comedy film starring Burt Reynolds * "Paternity" (''House''), a 2004 episode of the television seri ...

* activity that results in false claims to insurers or programs such as Medicare in the United States or equivalent state programs for financial gain to a pharmaceutical company. * , Communicationthe use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers. * Premium diversion, see *

Price fixing Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given ...

* Push payment fraud * the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. *

Racketeering Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and of ...

* Recruitment fraud, see *

Return Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...

* *

Intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

Scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

* *

Shill bidding A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with said person or organization. Shills can carry out their operatio ...

Spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their privac ...

* Tailgating, see *

Tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

Tech support Technical support (abbreviated as tech support) is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical suppor ...

Telemarketing Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent f ...

fraudulent selling conducted over the telephone. The term is also used for not involving selling. *

Slamming Slamming is the impact of the bottom structure of a ship onto the sea surface. It is mainly observed while sailing in waves, when the bow raises from the water and subsequently impacts on it. Slamming induces extremely high loads to ship structure ...

Tobashi scheme A tobashi scheme is a financial fraud through creative accounting where a client's losses are hidden by an investment firm by shifting them between the portfolios of other (genuine or fake) clients. Any real client with portfolio losses can there ...

* an attempt to avoid debt by transferring money to another person or company, particularly with regard to insolvent debtors. *

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

Vomit Vomiting (also known as emesis and throwing up) is the involuntary, forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose. Vomiting can be the result of ailments like food poisoning, gastroenteriti ...

* Voter, vote rigging, see *

Welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...

illegal abuse of a state

welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...

system by knowingly withholding or giving false information in order to obtain more funds than would otherwise be allocated. *

White-collar crime The term "white-collar crime" refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. It was first defined by the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a ...

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

* Workmen's compensation, see

References

External links

* {{Authority control Fraud Crime-related lists

Types

See also

References

Further reading

External links