Duplicate prevention

Put processes in place to prevent, identify and correct duplicate records, identities, requests or claims.

This control targets both internal and external fraud risks.

Examples

Examples of this control include:

identifying and denying duplicate claims
flagging and reviewing potential duplicate vendor invoices
requiring employees to undertake thorough searches of existing customer records to avoid creating duplicate records
interrogating systems to identify, review and correct potential duplicate records.

Duplicate records, identities, requests or claims can lead to:

fraudulent payments being made multiple times
dual claiming of different payments or benefit types
duplicate or ghost records being used to conceal activities or exploit processes
incorrect and inconsistent reporting and decision making
other control weaknesses, e.g. less-effective fraud detection.

Methods to evaluate the effectiveness of this control include:

confirming that clear and consistent processes exist to prevent, identify and correct duplicates
analysing data to confirm duplicates are being properly identified and corrected
consulting subject matter experts on processes
conducting a system or process walkthrough by having employees show you the process for managing duplicates
reviewing a data sample to confirm compliance with policies and processes
reviewing who has access to review and correct duplicates
checking if and how duplicates are reported.

Other capability, prevention, detection and response controls that can enhance this control’s effectiveness:

Types of behaviour this control is designed to mitigate:

Explore a range of controls that can be put in place to reduce the risk of fraud happening in your organisation.