---
title: "The Biggest Fraud Risk May Already Be Inside the Business"
date: 2026-10-06
author: "chargebacks911"
featured_image: "https://chargebacks911.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Press-Travel-and-Tour-World.jpg"
categories:
  - name: "Press"
    url: "/press.md"
---

# The Biggest Fraud Risk May Already Be Inside the Business

Chargebacks911 Founder and CEO Monica Eaton and Chief Technology Officer Donald Kossmann were recently interviewed by Travel and Tour World for a feature examining the growing threat of internal fraud and employee collusion. The interview explores how fraud originating within a business can go undetected, eventually contributing to financial losses and chargebacks.

The feature, *The Biggest Fraud Risk May Already Be Inside the Business*, highlights research showing that nearly one in four merchants has experienced employee-initiated fraud or internal collusion, while fewer than four in ten actively monitor for this activity. For travel, hospitality, and retail businesses, internal fraud can involve refund manipulation, misuse of customer information, unauthorized account changes, or collusion between employees and customers. These activities can be difficult to detect because they may occur through legitimate credentials and established business processes.

“Internal fraud can take many forms, from deliberate refund manipulation and misuse of customer data to collusion between employees and customers,” Monica explains. She notes that the activity may not resemble the external fraud that businesses are accustomed to detecting, adding, “That is the real blind spot: the loss is originating inside a process the business already trusts.”

Donald discusses the technical challenges of identifying these threats, emphasizing the need to connect transaction records with refund activity, employee access logs, customer service interactions, and dispute outcomes. Both executives stress that businesses need more than traditional fraud controls. Strong access governance, detailed audit trails, and continuous monitoring can help identify suspicious patterns before they lead to recurring losses. By connecting operational activity with downstream [chargebacks](https://chargebacks911.com/chargebacks/ "Chargebacks 101"), merchants can investigate the underlying causes of disputes instead of treating each case as an isolated incident.