The mind is boggled when we are confronted daily with malfeasance in every part of life.

In government, it was in learning how MMS – the agency in charge of regulating the oil industry and its activities/payments – was not only sleeping at the wheel, they were also sleeping with the enemy!

It was, and is, in hearing our elected officials rant for change…and then vote NO (or not) when real change is presented to them.  It is in learning that 350,000,000 Americans have less to say about regulation and oversight than a few thousand Lobbying firms.

And the grim truths are revealed about Industry.

Business is no longer the “golden child” which will lead us out of the wilderness.  All too many of them are actively cooking the books, subverting oversight authority, funding campaigns that support their narrow and selfish cause, and otherwise making sure that Capitalism will triumph.  Omigod.

A federal grand jury has indicted the head of what was once among the largest privately held mortgage lending companies for allegedly scheming to steal more than a half-billion dollars from the government’s Troubled Assets Relief Program.

The attempt to get TARP funds was just one part of a scheme that was “truly stunning in its scale and complexity” and that resulted in losses of more than $1.9 billion, an official in the Justice Department reported.

It should come as no surprise, then, that business can’t even trust its own people. A recent article in the CFO Magazine summarized a 2010 release “Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse” by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).

Here are the corporate Confidence Games that keep the Giants of Industry up late:

Only 14% of corporate fraud is caught by internal auditors. Lack of internal controls was a primary problem which allowed for fraud.  It took the inside “whistleblower,” provided a protected “hot line,” to reduce corporate fraud - by nearly 60%.

Another non-surprise is that workers (and us) can’t even trust the bosses.  Median losses of $834,000 by execs outstripped losses related to crimes committed by non-management employees by a 9-1 margin! 

When they were caught, what gave them away? Living beyond their means. (Hmmmmm. Better check out the CFO’s new Bimmer.)

And, a history of appearing trustworthy is not enough – 80% of all fraudsters had no previous fraud convictions.  At the top of that game: Bernie Madoff.

Which department allowed for the greatest losses? Our collaborators in accounting, of course. 

In my industry, credit and collections, there are ”no-goodnics” galore.

In Rhode Island, scam artists impersonating law enforcement officials recently launched a volley of calls to collect a debt… claiming the non-payback of payday loans.  If the initial attempt to collect were not successful, they would call back months later to threaten their victims with arrest for fraud.

In another scam, con artists posing as a collection agency representative will contact a victim by mail, email or telephone, claiming the person owes a specific dollar amount to a particular company.

They threaten to report “overdue bills” to credit bureaus, take some form of legal action or even drain money from victims’ bank accounts without their consent.

Upright citizens may doubt themselves, thinking they’ve forgotten to pay a bill. And, because the sums involved tend to be fairly small, some people are tempted to just pay the “bill” and “get it over with.”

There are reported cases in which people purportedly (or actually) working for a collection agency use the information obtained through the course of their work to steal a debtor’s identity – and no one the wiser.

In this case, both creditor and collection agencies are victims of the crime. Creditors and collection agencies are not going to get paid by a victim of identity theft. Compounding this, there are individuals who claim identity theft but in reality are trying to avoid paying a valid bill.

This makes it even harder for collection agencies, creditors and the true victims of identity theft.

The kicker?  Agencies will rack up more than 11,750 complaints filed with the FTC by the end of this year.

Diogenes would wear out a thousand lamps in search of an honest person in today’s world.