BFA # 010 | Investigator's Shadow

What's happening Fraud Fighters?

As you’re growing in your career and more removed from the front line, do you find your skills getting rusty?

Even worse, do you find yourself giving outdated bad fraud advice yourself?

Stop being a has been and keep those skills sharp.

Let's investigate further

Read Time: ~3.57 Minutes

From Fighter to Fraud Leader

Having recently been promoted to the position of your dreams, Fraud Leader, at your company, you can't help but feel a sense of pride. Your years of hard work as a front line fraud investigator have paid off, creating this fantastic opportunity.

Throughout your career, you've solved countless complex fraud cases, earning a well-deserved reputation for your sharp insights and unwavering dedication through holiday spikes. As you take on your new role, you delegate tasks to your trusted team of investigators, allowing you to focus on strategic planning and management.

Months go by, and you start to notice a decline in your team's performance. The number of unresolved cases begins to pile up, and your once highly efficient team seems to be struggling. Concerned about the situation, you decide to take a step back and reevaluate your approach.

You recall the days when you were on the front lines, dealing with the nitty-gritty of fraud investigations, and realize that you may have lost touch with the day-to-day challenges faced by your team.

Time to get back into the queue…

How to Shadow Your Fraud Fighters

You just received a calendar invite from your boss. No explanation. No detail. Here comes the panic attack. You instantly convince yourself you’re being fired.

Don’t do that.

The best shadow sessions are where people feel comfortable to share how they work, what they’re thinking, and everything in between. They need to know you’re there to help them get better and feel better about their work.

You’ll want to define the focus of the session and what the objectives are. This will help your fraud fighters anticipate what to expect. If you’ve been clear, you should help manage some of that pre session anxiety.

Remember the goal is to work together. Not make them feel watched…

3 Types of Fraud Fighters to Shadow

Extreme attention to detail and low activity

In my experience, this type of fraud fighter is one of my most trusted team members. I find myself learning investigation tricks from them.

There are two goals for me in this session. 1 Speed up some part of their process, so they can move quicker. 2 Find ways to operationalize what works for them and roll it out to the rest of the team.

I may focus learning more on how this fraud fighter prioritizes their queue and does their research. I find myself often needing a few more sessions with this fraud fighter. Typically, we talk through high-level thinking all the way down to nuanced investigation tips. To keep organization, it’s helpful to stick the original expectations you set. Anything that doesn’t fit within the scope take notes as follow up action items for structuring the next session.

High volume and high insult

You may go into this session expecting to just tell them to slow things down, but fight that urge initially. Remember you’re sharpening your skills as a front line fraud fighter too. Your goal is to identify what is blocking them from making accurate decisions.

Are they skipping a step? Are they overlooking information? Are they not taking adequate notes? Are they able to digest a lot of information quickly? Are they putting to much emphasis on average handling time? These are just a few questions for you to think through as they go through their version of the investigation process. There are plenty other questions we could add to the list.

I’ll use these questions to help me understand which parts of the process isn’t being followed as intended. I’ll then want to focus more of my time on this part of the process vs the entire investigation process as a whole.

The new fraud fighter

This shadow session is a little different than the others two, but just as important. This session is to build direction, validation, and trust.

Being new to a company (even if they come with experience), involves some learning curve. I’ve seen companies use the same tool completely differently, so someone’s experience with the same exact tool may not always translate as expected.

You being here in this shadow session is to affirm they’re doing the right things, which can have multipliers on building confidence. For the reps that have a little slower of a ramp, your presence is to help guide and redirect them before bad habits are the default.

This session can also give you a sense of how they’re actually being trained while onboarding. If they seem to be taught incorrectly, go back to the onboarding docs and make sure they’re up to date.

Shining Light from the Shadows

Over the course of a week, you work closely with your fraud fighters. You quickly discover that several new fraud schemes and techniques have emerged, and your team is struggling to adapt to these rapidly changing trends. Additionally, you notice a communication gap between the management and front line investigators, leading to misunderstandings and a lack of trust.

Inspired by your findings, you call a meeting with your team to discuss your observations openly. You share your experiences from shadowing the investigators and acknowledge the challenges they face. Your team, in turn, opens up about their concerns and shares ideas for improvement.

Together, you develop a plan to strengthen your fraud management strategy, incorporating the latest industry best practices and providing specific training to address knowledge gaps. You also establish regular feedback loops to facilitate open communication and collaboration between the management and front line fraud fighters.

If you’re able to get a better understanding of how your fraud fighters work and what obstacles they’re running into, you’ll put yourself and your team in the best position to find appropriate and timely solutions.

What’s new this week?

You may have noticed a few new things this week. I moved the newsletter from one provider to a new provider called Beehiiv.

Now you can easily view all of the previous Newsletter editions as well as even more content I’ve been writing. It was requested on LinkedIn for me to create more ‘How to’ checklists. I have to give the people what they want. You can find a growing collection here.

You can now also refer your team, friends, fraud fighters, acquaintances, neighbors, and enemies to unlock rewards. Rewards!? Yup things like my never talked about Fraud Fighter OS, Content OS, Career Power Hours, that fraud merch, and 3 months of 1:1 coaching with me. Find your unique referral link at the bottom of this email.

If you got any ideas for referral rewards, shoot me an email.

See you again next Friday in your inbox.

​Brian