Mary Church, an internal accountant for Wardak Construction Consulting, is investigating a loss of $100,000 via four checks for $25,000 each. It appears that the checks had been stolen from the company's finance office. Unfortunately, Jason Well, the financial manager, had kept the checkbook and register in an unlocked file cabin, and at least six employees had access to his office. The stolen checks had been made payable to Renny Supplier Services. Mary filled out the appropriate fraud affidavits with her company's bank, but the bank would not immediately refund the stolen money because the bank officials wanted to first contact Renny Supplier Services to ask for an explanation. Mary was very unhappy about waiting a whole day to recover the money because she felt that the problem was between the bank and Renny Supplier Services. Things got worse. The bank calls Jason and tells him it is suspending Wardak's line of credit. Further, Mary learns that the order to cut off Wardak's credit line came from the bank's loss management department. From further discussions, it became clear that the bank was treating Wardak as if it were guilty of the fraud. In a panic, Mary begins her own investigation of Renny Supplier Services. Checking with the Secretary of State's online database she learns that Renny Supplier Services is a registered fictitious name for Martin Renny, and now the telephone number for Renny Supplier Services appears to be disconnected. So, she drives to the address listed with the Secretary of State only to find a lawyer's office. The lawyer indicated that she could accept legal service for Renny but could provide no more information. Finally, Mary searched for and found Renny Supplier's website, and after more digging she found that the site was hosted by a budget hosting company in Dallas, and the domain name, Renny-Services.Com, was registered to an e-mail address that ended in ".RU.' 

Required: How should Mary proceed with her investigation? What fraud is likely involved? 

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Mary should continue her investigation of Renny Supplier Services to determine if it is a real company and if not who is behind the fraud She should a... View the full answer