a. This seems like a foolproof scheme. Why did Sethi limit himself to only one month's activity before leaving town? b. What controls could Benson & Abernathy imple- ment to prevent this from happening again?
a. This seems like a foolproof scheme. Why did Sethi limit himself to only one month's activity before leaving town? b. What controls could Benson & Abernathy imple- ment to prevent this from happening again?
Chapter1: Financial Statements And Business Decisions
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 1Q
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Question

Transcribed Image Text:range of outside correspondence to various internal
office mail, as well as receiving and distributing a wide
departments. One of Sethi's jobs was to open cash
receipts envelopes from customers making payments
3. MAIL ROOM FRAUD AND
INTERNAL CONTROL
Sarat Sethi, 'a professional criminal, took a job as a mail
room clerk at Benson & Abernathy and Company, a
large department store. The mail room
extremely hectic work environment consisting of a
supervisor and 45 clerks. The clerks were responsible
for handling promotional mailings, catalogs, and inter-
office mail, as well as receiving and distributing a wide
was
an
E
ta
ac
a.

Transcribed Image Text:on their credit card balances. He separated the remit-
tance advices (the bills) and the checks into two piles.
He then sent remittance advices to the AR department.
where the customer accounts were updated to reflect
the payment. He sent the checks to the cash receipts
department, where they were recorded in the cash jour-
nal and then deposited in the bank. Batch totals of cash
received and accounts receivable updated were recon-
ciled each night to ensure that everything was accounted
for. Nevertheless, over a one-month period, Sethi man-
aged to steal $100,000 in customer payments and then
left the state without warning. b0
The fraud occurred as follows: Because the name of
the company was rather long, some people had adopted
the habit of making out checks simply to. Benson.
Sethi had a false identification prepared in the name of
John Benson. Whenever he came across a check made
out to Benson, he would steal it along with the remit-
tance advice. Sometimes people would even leave the
payee section on the check blank. He also stole these
a
a
checks. He would then modify the checks to make
them payable to J. Benson and cash them. Because the
ts
AR department received no remittance advice, the end-
of-day reconciliation with cash received disclosed no
discrepancies.
er
Required
pe
a. This seems like a foolproof scheme. Why did
Sethi limit himself to only one month's activity
before leaving town?
b. What controls could Benson & Abernathy imple-
ment to prevent this from happening again?
ail
a
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