Episode 11: Let's Talk FinCrime & the Ethical Line

At what point in the fraud triangle of opportunity, pressure and rationalization can a good person make a bad decision? In this episode, we’ll talk to Kelly Paxton, a Certified Fraud Examiner, private investigator and former special agent for U.S. Customs as we cover the “could vs. should” side of ethics when it comes to financial crime, and how organizations can help their employees make ethical decisions.

Kelly Paxton has more than 20 years of investigative experience as a Certified Fraud Examiner, private investigator, author and podcast host-founder of Great Women in Fraud. She started her career in law enforcement as a Special Agent for the U.S. Customs Office of Investigations, working with white collar fraud, money laundering and narcotics cases. Kelly is also the proud owner of pinkcollarcrime.com, a passion of hers about embezzlers in the workplace.  Her book, Embezzlement: How to Prevent, Detect, and Investigate Pink-Collar Crime, was published in December 2020.

You can hear more of our conversation with Kelly by visiting actimize.nice.com/podcast

Transcript

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Hi, welcome to Let's talk fin crime, the show where we explain not only what compliance and financial crime are, but most importantly what it means for you and how it affects your daily life. I'm your host, Dave Ackerman. I'm a lawyer, Chief Compliance Officer, and financial regulation expert for nice Active Minds based in New York City. We bring you conversations with some of the most interesting people that we can find. All designed to help you understand what's happening in the financial world. In this episode of Let's talk fin crime, we're talking about ethics. A person's ethics is based on a set of standards of right and wrong, that prescribe what we ought to do. There are a fundamental part of finance, but they're often misunderstood. So today, we are speaking with a woman who specializes in understanding could versus should. In other words, when an ethical dilemma arises, what options do you have and which option is the right choice? Kelly Paxton has more than 20 years of investigative experience. Kelly is a certified fraud examiner, private investigator, author, former special agent for the US Customs Office of investigations and hosts of the insanely popular podcast great women fraud. Kelly, it is awesome to have you with us. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, Dave. And I have to like give a big shout out to this is like my sort of my other side is the behavioral science and I got this code versus should from Francesca Gino at Harvard. And I love behavioral science because it my core. And I'm hoping that your core to most people are good. And honest, people steal. I'm known as the fraud hashtag queen. And that's one of my things. I can't get out of bed in the morning, if I think everyone's out to rip us off. So that they Special Agent law enforcement side of me deals with bad guys. And you know, sometimes bad women. But besides the psychopaths out there, and if you're a psychopath in the audience, you can just leave because none of this is going to make any sense to you. Like none of it will make any sense. But like, Kelly, it's funny you say that because my first boss and FINRA, he told me that a lot of what we do is almost like driving down the road. 99% of the people are doing the right thing. They're following the rules. But it's that one idiot that speeding past you or up on your bumper, those are the ones that you notice. And and it's I think you're you hit the nail on the head is important to realize that the world that you and I operate in, is vast, there are a lot of moving pieces, there are hundreds of 1000s of individuals that are relying on it. And the vast majority of them are decent people that are trying to do the right thing. But that's that's exactly what how we brought this conversation about right this idea of ethics in this world. So can you kind of give us what is your view of ethics? What does that look like when we talk about it? You know, what is it that we are inherently just understanding? So you know, you can do something can be legal, but not ethical. And like I look at ethics is you know, and it's so cheesy to say this doing the right thing when no one's looking. But even more so Dan Ariely again, another behavioral economist is being able to look at your look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day, and seeing a good person. Like, I want to do that. That's my ethics is at the end of the day, when I'm brushing my teeth, I can look in the mirror and say, I did good today. I didn't hurt anyone. I didn't cheat, I didn't steal. I can look in the mirror and not go. That was not cool. So one of the things that I've always found interesting is ethics. If you ask 10 different people where the line is, you're gonna get 10 different answers. Right? So especially in in your years of investigations. I love this concept that you preach that that good people can steal. So so in your experience, let's start really high level. Do you think that that when good people do bad things, in your experience, do you think it's their ethics are broken? Or they just in situations that are making them question, what is the right thing to do? In my experience, most of them Make a decision that they know is wrong. That you know you have the fraud, triangle opportunity, pressure and rationalization. And there's an opportunity and they have the pressure. And then a rationalization can come in most of them, again, excluding size, psychopaths and narcissists, they know what they're doing isn't right. Like they know it. Now, everyone has a different version of what is right. Like, this is so funny, it was just doing some work with a investigator out of New York. And we were talking about old cases and everything. And I said, I been to undercover school at Flexi the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. And I said, you know, there was a guy who was amazing. He barely passed the test the psych test to become an undercover agent. But he was like, You know what, he was raised in New York, the Greater New York City area, I'm in a rough neighborhood. And he had much more of a survival mentality than say, me, who's raised in Portland, Oregon, with, you know, somewhat functional family, and educated. So his line is different than my line. But who was the better undercover agent? I can't lie. Like, Oh, my God, my lips starts like quivering. This guy could have sold me the Brooklyn Bridge, and I would have bought it. That's amazing. So thankfully, he was on the side of good. Yeah. And wow. Interestingly enough, then, okay, so. So how does that, that when we're talking about ethics, I love this idea. I've always loved this concept of code versus should, just because I can do something or I have the opportunity to do something doesn't mean that I should. So at what point of the triangle, have you seen good people turn bad is it is it just, you know, the opportunity where the kid is, you know, the candy bars out on the counter, and the kid sees it, and has never stolen before and just swipes it and put it in his pocket? Is it pressure? You know, I've definitely been involved in cases in the past where there was a sick family member involved or some other type of just I outward pressure of I need to get this done in order to help someone. And the rationalization piece I always found came later. So you know, in your experience, what do you think is the is the what should people be on the lookout for the absolute most? Is it that little voice in their head for the opportunity? Is that the pressure? Is it the rationalization What? So most fraud professionals will tell you lock down the opportunity, if they don't have the opportunity? They can't do it? That's, that's easy. That's internal controls, you know, it, it's easy, it's like kind of concrete. Now you have pressure, we're in COVID, and we're recovering from COVID. Some people have financial issues that you would never think would have financial issues. Think of the and I use this example, the orthopedic surgeon who for months, could not do elective surgeries. And he's got or she's got a million dollar lifestyle, and they're not doing surgeries. Like, you don't think of that. But I mean, I think you've seen probably PPP fraud, or, you know, the ideal fraud where it happened. So you have financial pressures from COVID that we've never felt before. But the area that I like to kind of focus in is rationalization. Now, I'm the audience. I've done this example before, I call it my Masters of the Universe. And I was giving a presentation. And these were all very, very successful. In this case, it was a male group. They were there with their spouses. And so they're not going to pay attention to like low level embezzlement, that's like, no, not gonna pay attention to it. So but say, for example, one of these Masters of the Universe gets a call from his biggest client or her biggest client, saying it's the 28th of the month, Hey, I know we need to sign that contract for next year. But I'm going to be out of town or my lawyer is looking at something I'm not going to be able to sign it till next Wednesday. And that's the first of the month. And if it isn't signed, you are out of your loan covenants. What do you do? What does that Master of the Universe in their head say they're like, it's a date. I'm going to call down to john or Jane in accounting and have them date it for you The 28th it's just a date, no harm, no foul. And if I don't do it, and I get out of my loan covenants, I may have to lay off john or Jane. And Jane may have a sick child or a kid in college. And so this is the which we talked a little bit before the show is this outcome bias. And then sure enough, next Wednesday, the client signs it, no harm, no foul. But the rationalization is when you know, Master of the Universe calls down to john or Jane and says, Just sign it, don't worry about it. They know you've crossed that line, they know you are out of loan covenants. And right there, you're giving them a little bit of rationalization that when you know what their visa bill comes in, and it's a little bigger than it's like, well, you know, they don't really pay attention. So I don't know what what's your thought process on something like that? Well, so, interestingly enough, I've seen these situations in my career that I can imagine your shock and awe and surprise. And it's funny because the details may change, but the setup is usually the same, right? It's, it's a white lie, there is no harm to be done, there's no what can possibly go wrong. And then on top of that, you're in an enclosed environment, right? So interestingly enough, so for those of you who are listening, and if you've ever been in that situation, where you have someone that is putting pressure on you, maybe it is somebody who's very high up, it's that is a difficult place to be. And it takes an incredible amount of, of courage and self confidence to be able to speak up and say, maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe we should wait, maybe you know, this, this doesn't feel right, this doesn't sound right. Interestingly enough, and Kelly, please feel free to either validate this or disagree. But pressure works both ways. Pressure can work, to push individuals who wouldn't normally sign a document fraudulent Li, or wouldn't normally process a transaction fraudulent Li, or conversely, it could work in the opposite direction to make sure that maybe that master of the universe or the you know, if you're looking out and you own all the light touches, like from The Lion King, you can push back and kind of give them a little bit of a reality check and say, Look, you know, this doesn't sound right, if it's, if it's not a big deal, it can wait the five days, so so I understand, like, maybe making somebody aware that the anxiety that you're feeling, because the deal isn't done in a timely manner may not necessarily be as bad as committing fraud. So I don't know, I mean, in your experience, again, if you kind of seen this, almost reverse pressure, where someone does speak up, and they kind of have that self confidence to do so. Well, I'm going to say if you do speak up, you better document it really, really well. Um, you know, email is great, and documented really, really well. But yeah, I mean, this is where I'm going to say, as a business owner, to have really good relationships, not just with your employees, but also with your banker with your lawyer. So you can, um, uh, you know, reach out in a protected confidential way and say, Hey, you know, this is what I'm going up against, like, and this is, um, this is, again, behavioral science, you're going to find out what a geek I am about this is we have Danny Kahneman was system one and system two and system. One is the quick Yes, yes, no, no, you know, sure. And the system two is the slower, more methodical, and it turns out to be much more ethical thinking. And it's the sleep on it. So, before you go, and you call john or Jane and say, to do that, you know what, maybe you sleep on it, maybe you're like, Hey, I'm going to take my banker out to lunch and say, just for example, if this were to happen, so slow down, don't immediately put that type of pressure, usually things I mean, we tell our kids, you know, let's just wait until tomorrow. And I like to say wait until tomorrow because, you know, unless it's something that's just kind of insane that you have to do that very second. Most time. You can wait until tomorrow that gives you time to reach out to people that you trust, like know like and trust. And they might say hey, you know what, I've worked with that bank before or you know, my banker at that bank, he's helped me out, she's helped me out. I think just calling him up is the better thing to do. Or maybe they're gonna say, You know what? Don't bother. So having a community of trusted individuals, and this goes to the code versus should. So what should you do? You know, what should you do is you should call your bank and do it. But like, I mean, I believe this was in a fortune 50 company, I'm not going to say which one. Like, if they would have told the bank that they were out of loan covenants, the bank would have yanked it. And then they would no longer be a fortune 50 company, this was decades ago, but they would have never made it to their, um, instead, that's what you should do. But what could you do? And maybe that causes you to scramble to reach out to client number two, and say, Hey, you know, what, we're gonna give you a small discount to have you signed in to replace it. So that could is becoming more creative. And what Francesco Gino talks about it, it is the creativity, it gives you more moral insight, because you have to look for other options. So that's what I like about it is, I've done things I should have done, if I would have slowed down. One in particular, I should have could have, I could have done something differently. But Oh, absolutely. You know, what we all have. And part of part of what we try to do on this show is help the average person, the average mom and pop, who aren't in fraud or aren't in financial services, and help them kind of understand what is going on behind the scenes, to get them better educated to make better decisions for themselves. And what you're hearing right now, the conversation that Kelly and I are having. This happens literally every day at the highest levels of pretty much any organization you could possibly think of. There are there's a reason procedures are in place in order to not just document action. But it limits that opportunity, this idea of limiting opportunity week. This is something that you can use in your daily lives, it doesn't have to be specific to finance or fraud. In I truly believe part of the Behavioral Sciences conversation Kelly and I've had a few times any good human being any good person with moral grounding, any any, just a truly good individual can be driven to make bad decisions based on the circumstances surrounding them. We've all seen it. We've all seen good people do bad things. So limiting opportunity to make a bad decision is always a good idea, regardless of what issue and and then, you know, part of this kind of the pressure and the rationalization piece usually comes after the fact. But but you're never going to live a life free from pressures. I don't care where you are, who you are, what you're doing. You know, Kelly and I have literally done hundreds of investigations. And pretty much every single one of them has a common element. There was pressure somewhere internal, external, you know, maybe somebody wants to get ahead, right. Like it could be, it could be greedy pressures, like I want to succeed in my business. Right, Kelly, I mean, I think like what was in your experience, what's been the most kind of the the most prevalent one, because I can think of one or two off the top of my head. But most of it, I would say is really just that, that willingness to go ahead and be with the pack. So I say that my career has all has always been about money. So my first career, I worked at the Chicago Board of Trade, I was a stockbroker and a bond trader, and it was learning how people would save and invest money. And then we got a client who was hinky and he turns out he'd stolen money. So then I become a special agent. And I see that, you know, and I don't like to say money is the root of all evil, but it's a root of a lot of evil. And, um, again, system one and system two, system one is take that money and you know, we won't get kicked out of our house or my car won't get repossessed or something like that. That's that quick thinking. And system two is like, hey, I need a budget and I can't afford that much or Mazda rottie. Your Lambo, you know, like live within your means. But that's system two, and we, our brains work on system one. So my third sort of career is like I'm this fraud therapist. Kind of like it You know, I'm not a therapist, but I've seen a lot and I get, I get victims, and I get suspects that cry on my shoulder. And people think money solves issues, and it does all the time. But you know, and this goes back to tone at the top. So say you're, you know, Mom and Pop working on Main Street own a business on Main Street. And you know, you've worked really, really hard for that business. And I use this example all the time, but we're gonna pick a different locale to do this. So, you know, Bill and Susie own a business, and they have a trade show. And it's in the south of France. And they decide they want to take their kids along with them to the south of France, and then stop in Paris, and they come back with the $20,000, black American Express bill for the weekend. And, you know, the office manager gets the bill and says, How do I break this up? Because I know you and you know, you took your kids, and you say it's none of your business, just pay the bill. Now, that office manager, a bookkeeper is no dumbed down, as my dad would say, is no dum dum. They know that you're not paying taxes on a $20,000 vacation, you're saying you showed up at the trade show for 20 minutes and grabbed a couple of pencils. And you were writing off the trip that goes to rationalization and tone at the top. So then the bookkeepers, kid, you know, text their parent their mom at the business on Main Street and says, Hey, you know, I need the last 200 bucks for my school trip to go see Washington DC, what goes through your head? It's 200 bucks. My boss just wrote off a $20,000 trip to the south of France that my kids will never see what's 200 bucks. And that's how it starts. So again, tone at the top, the bookkeeper at the end of the year, you might take an owner straw for that. But are you going to go back to your bookkeeper and say, oh, by the way, I took an owner straw for that 20 grand here like it's none of their business. It isn't any other business except for the fact you've given them license to steal. And that is I mean, I felt bad for the fictional bookkeeper that we were just talking about. You know, even that scenario, kind of, even in a fictional sense kind of fills you with a little bit of anxiety, right? You feel for that individual. And that is a, a difficult place to be in. It's also a perfect time to take a quick commercial break, but stick around because when we come back, we're gonna probe that idea a little bit and talk a little bit more about this idea of outcome bias. So we'll be right back after this message. Are you part of a financial institution interested in sophisticated AI powerful analytics and intelligent data, catch up with nice ACTA Mize engage live on demand to hear from industry experts and exciting keynotes as we work together to fight financial crime. Visit nice ACTA mize.com slash engaged to watch for free. So Kelly is a certified fraud examiner with over 20 years of investigation experience, she's investigated different things such as embezzlement, conflict of interest, intellectual property, fraud, Open Source Intelligence. And we've been talking about this idea of ethics, where it comes from, how it's influenced, and how those opportunities can be created. So I want to switch the conversation a little bit to this concept of outcome bias, right? How many times have you and I over the course of our careers? heard people say things like it's a victimless crime, I didn't think I was hurting anyone. You know, the the constant thought that I'm not going to get caught. And you know what, in a lot of cases, a lot of times you don't get caught right away. So you know what? repetition, you develop these patterns. And that's usually how people are Kelly, and I find you. So Kelly, if you don't mind giving us in the broad sense, what is outcome bias? And is this something that we deal with in our daily lives or is this just isolated to the financial world? No, I don't think it's isolated just to the financial world. But when I was listening to podcasts, which by the way, I think podcasts are one of the best way to learn. I mean, like, I get to listen to Francesco Gino, like whenever I want to, or just amazing people. And, um, I was listening to two podcasts he was on, and I was hearing about outcome bias. And the first thing I went to was Enron, I just my brain immediately went to Enron, and it was like, well, it's all good, because like, you know, or another company that hits their numbers, like, well, we all get bonuses, because we hit our numbers. Well, how did you hit the numbers? So that sort of as long as we get to the outcome that we want, or we need? It's okay, how we got there? And it's like, Yeah, not so good. So, do you think that feeds into the rationalization piece of the triangle? Absolutely, absolutely. feeds into the rationalization piece of the triangle. And I mean, you see it whenever you hear, you know, a company reporting their quarterly numbers. You know, one example recently is Tesla coming out with, you know, they hit their numbers, because they sold a bunch of Bitcoin. And if you dig into it, that's how they hit their numbers, like, so they needed to hit the numbers, and they hit the numbers by selling like $100 million worth of Bitcoin. Is that really hitting the numbers? Like that's an outcome. So and they're essentially, so it sounds to me, like, what happens is it becomes a self feeding prophecy. Right? You're, you're engaging in this behavior in order to either move towards something positive or avoid something negative. And then when it works, you do it again, and possibly do it again, and then possibly do it again. So how? Okay, let me ask you this, then kind of going back to the example that you gave of that bookkeeper that had, you know, to two ethical dilemmas in the same situation, right? Do I process this transaction the way I'm being told to from the boss, even though I know it's wrong? And then secondly, if I even the fact that I was asked to do so, now that I'm in a position where I need money, or I need to do I embezzled that because it's such a de minimis amount? So before we get to the answer that question, I just want to tell, you know, those of you who are listening, Kelly said something really interesting. Before the break about, you know, money can solve a lot of problems. I'm going to put an asterisk on that, cuz she's right, it can. And sometimes it feels like, oh, if I just had a little bit more money, I wouldn't have all these issues, I will tell you the vast majority of the time other than the delicately put psychopaths that she was referring to earlier, but the vast majority of people who kind of get sucked into these bad behaviors or, or ethical dilemmas. If you pay that bill, or if you fix that car, you fix that problem, it doesn't actually fix the problem. It fixes your immediate problem, the underlying cause of why this is happening, why you're getting yourself into that situation, or why that person B was put into that position in the first place. Money can't fix that. That's something that you need to do kind of look at yourselves. And you and you work on minimizing the opportunity, understanding this could versus should concept. So Kelly, I'm kind of curious. Is that something that you've seen before? And maybe you have an example of it? Where where Yeah, the money solve the immediate issue, it got the car, fixed it, got them to work it put the person in school or whatever it may have been, but then then six months, they were in the same position, and that's what got them caught. Yeah, yeah. So in this case, one case that I was part of where a woman stole from a medical clinic, and she got caught, and it was a woman that actually owned the medical clinic. And when she got caught, sure enough, she said to the owner, when the owner confronted her with an attorney, you know, we know you've stolen $250,000 and you're gonna go to jail. And she's like, but you know what, I know that you write your kids car off, you pay your house, you know, utility bills through the business. I'm going to turn you into the state, you know, Revenue Agency, IRS and Bureau of Labor and Industries. And luckily the business owner had a backbone and said, feel free But I call that the get out of jail free card. Because again, these, you know, pink collar crime, which is a pink Collar Crime it, it's low to medium level employees who steal from the workplace. Now, low to medium level employees are the ones who know, every dollar that goes into a business and every dollar that goes out of a business, you ask a CFO, you know, to do a journal entry, and they're gonna go, what journal entry, like know, someone else will process it. So they know the mechanics, and they also know every dollar in every dollar out. So that's, you know, that's a big thing. You're a big picture, as a business owner, you're the big picture, you're at the 50,000 feet level. And another thing is like a business owner, say you sell a million widgets a year. And you know that you net$10 a widget, you figured it all out, you net $10 a widget, you're like, I got $10 million in the bank, trust, but verify, do you it, you're running your accounting through your head, you're like I sold to a million there, I get 10 bucks, that $10 million. So I was listening to another podcast because I'm podcasts obsessed. I'm a very famous speaker, business owner. And he says, Every Friday morning, I have my financial person call me and he tells me exactly what's in all of my accounts. And I just wanted to I listened to podcast when I run, I just wanted to stop and scream. It's like, trust but verify dude, like come on. Like, you don't know if your financial manager has a private plane or has a Lambo or you know, horses. And he goes, Yeah, I know, every Friday morning exactly how much money I have in the bank, he has never looked once at his bank accounts. And I just I literally wanted to send him an email and say, dude, you gotta, you gotta trust but verify. So let's kind of bring this back around a little bit. For those of you who are listening, what, what I want you to kind of pull out of this is all of these different things that we're talking about happen, not just in finance, not just with big businesses, they happen every single day. And you could be at a point where you are faced with this question, what am I capable of doing? And what should I do? One of the things that I can tell you, and you know, Kelly, myself, pretty much anybody who has been in an investigative role for a period of time, isolated decision making is your enemy. It is it's when that that thought pops into your head, and you're like, Wow, that's a great idea. And then six weeks later, you're like, what the heck was I thinking? Okay, um, to Kelly's point earlier, if you are that business owner, and you are at risk of default, pick up the phone, call the bank, call the loan company, call a lawyer, call somebody, get some outside perspective, get some advice, because what's going to happen is, over the course of the conversation, that you have to get them aware of the situation, and the details that come out, you're going to start thinking of things that you did not think before. And it incorporates two concepts that Kelly's already mentioned, this idea that if it's important, now, it's still going to be important in 10 minutes, you have that time to take a breath and make a smart decision. No one is putting pressure on you to do it. Right That moment in the vast majority of cases. And then secondly, once you've taken that moment, you start getting some outside perspective, it's a lot easier to think objective Lee about a situation maybe, you know, maybe forging a document isn't the best course of action, you know, it could result in the, you know, this idea of outcome bias, it could result in absolutely no problems whatsoever. Right. But then it could, you know, the, the the reason, the laws and the regulations, and all of these different steps and procedures exist is because somebody did something at some point that messed up completely right we, you know, Kelly, I say this to people all the time. Um, it's not like we wake up one day and we're like, you know what, I really want to regulate swats like I just I just really feel like it today or you know, any money laundering? That sounds like a bad idea, let's go fix something over there. It's right. I mean, you know, you could always pretty much directly connect all of these different rules and procedures to something that just went catastrophic Lee supernova. And I guarantee you, not a single one of those people in those situations at the time, probably thought, wow, this is going to blow up in my face, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, I can't get out of bed in the morning. If I think that, you know, people are going to rip me off all day long. What if What if you went to the dentist, and the dentist is like, hey, if you've got a cavity, and you need a root canal? How many times do you get a second opinion at the dentist? Like you? Don't you have to trust them? Like, you know, I mean, you could come home on YouTube and probably do it yourself. No, you wouldn't do that. We have to trust people at some level, where and it also goes back to honest people stealing. I think, again, excluding psychopaths and Narcissus. Most people don't wake up and say, I'm going to steal 12 $165 from my, you know, employer today, what happens is, they see that there's an opportunity there, they get a text from, you know, the payday loan company or whatever. And it's like, Oh, God, you know, what, they're gonna repo my car if I don't make this payment? And, yeah, it just, we can't really think that people are constantly out to do that, at least I can't. And, you know, I use this example also is, I'd rather go up to happy hour with some of the people that I've defended or prosecuted than some co workers I've had. Just because somebody's done a bad thing doesn't make them a bad person. Like, and there are, quote, bad people who do good things, and business owner can help people stay in their lane of being a good person by not, you know, by having a good tone at the top by giving guardrails. Like it's just it's another one of my hashtags is it's not rocket science. I'm not a CPA, I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I can track money. And these cases aren't complex. Enron, yes, complex. Bernie Madoff. You know, he just had the black box excuse, like, no one knows what's in my black box. But like, embezzlement cases are really pretty, I'm gonna say pretty basic. I completely agree with you. And Okay, so then, before we conclude, let's kind of go back to your bread and butter of this pink collar crime, right? The lower level employees who are find themselves in this unfortunate situation, they have the opportunity, they have the pressure, and they may start rationalizing to themselves. And you know, what, some people who are listening right now, they may have been in that position, they may be in that position in the future. For those individuals who are who are experiencing that pressure, what kind of advice could you give them? You know, to prevent them from needing to cry on your shoulder at a future date? What do you think that you would be able to tell them that maybe, you know, this will pop up in their heads if they're ever in this situation? So do you mean as the victim business owner or the suspect, because there are two different things, the suspect? So the individual who would be engaging in the pin kallgren? Yeah, so I'm gonna say instead of Nike, just do it, I'm gonna say just don't do it. Um, it'll ruin your life. It'll ruin physically, mentally, you will get caught because generally you get sloppy over time you get sloppy. You will, it will make you physically sick again, unless you're a psychopath. And then you don't have any feelings anyway. But like the average person, they confess, they confess, can you imagine working in a office building or you know, a business, and you've got a cube, and your boss is sitting in the other room and every and you've been stealing? And every time your boss says, Hey, Kelly, can you come here? You've asked him physically what that does to you. And over time, it does make you physically sick, and there was a woman. There is a woman, Diane Kotani, who did steal, and she became physically sick ulcers, and you know, and she went home and watched Oprah and Dr. Phil was like, you got to be honest. And she went in the next day, and she told her boss and of course, she thought she only stole about 100,000. But it was, you know, quite a bit higher than that because they always round down. So but she had become physically sick because that guilt like these are people generally who have never broken the law. Before I wrote to a woman in prison who stole $10 million, quote, I had never so much as had a parking ticket before I went on this medication and I started stealing. So, and the acfe says only 4% of fraudsters have criminal histories. Now, that does not mean they've not done it before. It just means they weren't caught, or they were caught, and they were just fired and maybe not prosecuted. So it will, you're not going to look at yourself at the end of the day in the mirror, and be feel like if you're a good person, it will eat at you, I will tell you, it will eat at you. So don't do it go, I had a woman who stole a million dollars from a dentist. And when he came, you know, to the sheriff's office, he's like, I would have given her money. Now, he wouldn't have given her a million dollars. But it took her 10 years to steal million dollars, but he wouldn't have helped her out on a case by case basis. Or he would have said, You know what, maybe you needed a different type of job that pays better. Like, so stop before. It goes back to that idea that the money may may fix the immediate need, but it's not going to fix the underlying problem. And I you know what, I actually there's this great Saturday Night Live sketch with Gosh, I forgot who it was, but it basically was, he was a psychologist, and he just you pay him $10. And he goes, Okay, well, it's a very simple process. stuff. Exactly. So it's, it seems like a very simple like, Oh, yeah, obviously, but I have to agree. If you give yourself a moment, just put, put the pen down, take a walk, throw some water on your face, and then be mindful of also what you're experiencing. And I think to Kelly's point, if some of the pressures that I've seen people under there cause them to do bad things, things like shame or guilt or fear, they are very powerful emotions, very powerful emotions. However, talking about those things and working the underlying problem are nothing compared to the guilt that she is telling you about. And over the course of her career, these people you know, I mean, not gonna lie a million dollars over 10 years from a dentist that he didn't notice I'm kind of Loki impressed, but the the guilt and the the physical ailments that are associated with that, that is a very real thing. And I think that is very sage advice. Whatever it is that you may be experiencing at the time, would be astronomically infant test ml. To what you would experience now that you're talking about legal trouble now that you're talking about possible jail time. I mean, it is it is truly truly not worth it. Kelly Paxson has more than 20 years of investigative experience. She's She's a certified fraud examiner, a private investigator, a former Special Agent with us customs office of investigations. And as I said before, the host of the insanely popular podcast great women in fraud. Kelly is also the author of and I didn't know this before talking to her embezzlement, how to prevent, detect, and investigate pink collar crime. Definitely check it out. Kelly Also, please tell people how they can get in touch with you or learn a little bit more about your company. Yeah, so I have pink Collar Crime calm. It's a website, tons of information. I'm on LinkedIn. And I think I'm the only Kelly Paxton and I'm on Twitter pd x CFE and I tweet about embezzlement and ethics. And you know, the law, things like that. I'm not really on Instagram so much. And I have the great women in fraud podcast. And that's actually the book in the podcast happened because of COVID. Because I'm on the road teaching and training and consulting and COVID. Stop that. So I wanted to still get the message out. So I did the book, which I've been wanting to do for years. And then I just started up the podcast, because I had been a guest on great women in compliance. And I was like, we can have great women in fraud. And it's a joy and a pleasure to have amazing guests. Not all women. We do have some great dudes in fraud. So but I love podcasts so you can just Kelly Paxton, it's not that common of a name. Awesome. I definitely recommend people check it out. Truly. I do. In one thing that I have always said over the years is one of the benefits to having different genders, different ethnicities, just different opinions in the room is that you start to learn that there is more than one way to do something. And you know, a lot of a lot of statistics could be skewed in the sense that this is a male dominated type of crime, because we're not particularly apt at thinking like how women engage in fraud and different areas of that so that is definitely some area of this industry specifically that I know is is a growing concern and that people are really starting to be wise about So we thank you again for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe if you have an idea for a show if you're interested in being a guest we would love to hear from you. So drop us a line at podcast at nice atomized calm Don't forget we have bonus content for every episode available including this one at Active Minds dot nice comm forward slash podcast. I want to thank Kelly again for being with us. This was awesome. We really appreciate you being here. And we will see you all on the next episode of Let's talk fin crunch.