Brisbane ratepayers have been scammed of almost half a million dollars in an elaborate fraud, prompting Lord Mayor Graham Quirk to order an urgent external review into the council's payment processes.

Fraudsters posing as a vendor of what Cr Quirk described as "professional services" posed as that vendor to trick the council into changing the bank details for payments. They rang the Accounts Payable section and asked for these changes to be made. They also sent a follow-up email to authorise the changes.

"I can announce that in response to these findings, council's chief internal auditor has been dismissed," he said. 

"Additionally, I have given instructions to council's CEO to examine any further disciplinary action that should be taken against other staff directly involved with this matter."

"While it is evidenced in the findings that there was no collusion by council officers in the fraud, this case was much more than the result of simple human error.

"This sophisticated fraud has taken advantage of a loophole in council's processes, where the procedures were not effectively managing changes to vendor payment information.

"As a consequence, a sophisticated fraud attempt was not detected by council officers and a vendor's account details were changed without appropriate verification, resulting in the fraud."

Required:

a. What type of fraud was committed in this case?

b.Identify five other types of fraud and their victims studied in this unit. 

 

c.  Explain 4 ways that unauthorised changes to a vendor's bank details can be prevented.