Your idea of what you think a white-collar felon is, really isn’t the reality,'” Pope said. “Most of the people I interview are really nice, everyday people. They could be anyone walking down the street. – Kelly Richmond Pope
We’ve received emails from Nigerian princes…calls and emails promising lottery winnings (for lotteries we didn’t enter). We’ve read about fraudulent companies like Theranos and seen news stories about banks like Wells Frago that apparently defrauded customers from coast to coast at the direction of management. Fraud has touched all of us in some way, share, or form.
In her book, Fool Me Once, Kelly Richmond Pope shares real stories, examples, and cases of fraud representing three general categories that she describes as intentional, accidental, and righteous (described as someone who thinks they are doing good). These examples range from interesting to enlightening to outright maddening. Fraud is rampant, but so much of it happens because of the willful ignorance of insiders that choose not to say something.
Pope has the resume and credentials to investigate fraud across a wide variety of situations and contexts. Readers will be educated and entertained. Organizational structures, toxic cultures, and criminal enterprises all contribute to fraud that costs consumers, businesses, and taxpayers billions each year. Pope describes a variety of perpetrators and the circumstances that facilitated their crimes. As technology advances and laws change, fraud will evolve and we will all need to be ever vigilant to the very real risks facing all of us.
I want everyone to mind their business, but in the opposite way to what my mother meant. I want people to be vigilant, aware – Kelly Richmond Pope