Washington County Commission President Kevin Ritter, left, Ohio State Auditor Keith Faber and County Commissioner Charlie Schilling listen to a point being made by Commissioner James Booth. (Photo by Nancy Taylor)

Fraud is still a big game across Ohio, State Auditor Keith Faber says.

But his office and local prosecutors are fighting back as lying, cheating and stealing shift to newer financial technology.

One particular type of fraud occurring is “redirects,” where a fraudulent customer calls or emails a financial institution and directs that their paycheck or other funds be redirected to a different bank account, he said during a roundtable discussion at the Washington County Commissioners’ office Thursday. It’s not until later that the money is missing and the fraud is discovered.

“The moral of this story,” Faber urges local governments, “is to follow a two-person verification rule. Never accept a bank transfer request by email or phone call, even if you know the person.”

If vendor ABC Paving comes in and requests money to be moved, the engineer should come with him, and the engineer should bring his employee ID.

“I know that sounds like a big hassle, but it may save your town or county thousands of dollars in theft that was prevented.

“We’re losing more money to cyber fraud than to any dishonest employees,” he told county officials.

For one thing, Automated Clearing House transactions can often move in batches of thousands. It’s easier that way to hide transactions that are unfamiliar or out of the ordinary, he said. Fraud from bank wire transfers is down but being replaced by the new breed of cyber crimes.

Faber also pointed out that some fraud schemes are actually after a person’s personal information, rather than the money in an account. The personal information makes it much easier to create “financial mules” that can move money around so many times it’s not easy to trace it to the original source.

On several topics that came up Thursday, Faber reminded the group of county officials that his current job is not as a policy maker and there are others in the state whose comments would be better suited to some of the questions posed. But catching folks who have misused state taxpayers’ money is one of the state auditor’s office specialties. Faber’s office has three full-time special prosecutors.

He notes that Ohio’s office got recognition nationally for being one of the first auditors in the country to be on top of the widespread abuse of unemployment claims. The governor responded quickly and likely saved the state billions of dollars in additional exposure, he said.

“We thought we had that nipped in the bud,” he said of unemployment overpayments that hit several billion dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic, stemming from both criminal activity and mistakes. “But we’re starting to see a new uptick. We urge people to call us if they see something that’s wrong.”

To emphasize his seriousness about that, Faber said “anything over two cents, not $2 million but two cents,” is something the office will take seriously if it’s involving stealing from taxpayers.

Besides criminal investigation, Faber’s office does a set number of required audits of state agencies and higher education institutions each year. But staff performance audit teams also have been doubled in number so that local governments can request voluntary audits.

“We do it in partnership, so local governments can be better, faster, cheaper,” he said.

Sitting in on the roundtable discussion with Faber Thursday in Washington County were commissioners James Booth, Charlie Schilling and President Kevin Ritter; County Treasurer Tammy Bates; Prosecutor Nicole Coil; and the executive director of Job and Family Services for Washington County, Flite Freimann.

Faber said his office’s relationship with Washington County has always been a good one.

“It’s been really nice from my office’s point of view,” he said. “It shows when you have people who work well together.”