How I Stumbled Into Fraud at 17 | by Maia Rocio Gonzalez

Everyone has moments in life when you get to a fork in the road and have to decide. 
I am happy with the decision that I have made.

First of all, I’d like to apologise. You see, I might have slightly deceived you. 
While this blog is not a story about money heists and Ocean’s 11-style robberies, it is about Fraud. 

The Fork in the Road

Having just finished my A levels at 17, and being a part-time employee at a well-known shoe store, I had resided within myself that I would need to find a full-time job. In truth, I had absolutely no idea what I would do. I didn’t have any sense of direction. I had completed quizzes, spoken to counsellors, read online, and looked at Universities. But, I was no closer to figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I applied for pretty much any job on Indeed.

I received two callbacks and scheduled both interviews within a day of each other.
Lesson number one learned: Don’t stress yourself out by doing two interviews so close together. 
The first - A CV verification company, that involved me utilising the other languages that I speak. 
The second - A payment services company contact centre that was a 15 minute walk from my home

Somehow, both companies liked me!  And I had to decide. 

A job where I could use what I already knew, 
                                                                                or a job where I knew nothing. 

In the end, I decided on the fraud job because it was closest to home... Fork successfully dealt with.

Learning The Ropes

I had four weeks of intensive training in a classroom.
What is FRAUD? What is NOT fraud? 
Account takeover vs Application Fraud - and how to spot the difference.
What to do when you had a twenty-year-old man on the phone pretending to be 56-year-old Susan? (Yes, they did the voice too!)

It was thrilling. I was watching fraud being attempted before my very eyes.
If you were good at the job, you developed a gut specifically for it. I felt like the Spiderman of the Credit Card Fraud world. Spidey senses tingling!

Then four months in, I was leading training groups. Six months in, I started working on big cases: £40k scams, coercion, sophisticated romance scams, and so on. These were not just numbers, these were real people affected. People who had been caught blindsided by a minority that wanted to take advantage of their kindness. Something in me was brewing.

I was talking to everyone I could. Pacing back and forth between departments. Asking questions. Reading processes. I very slightly annoyed my manager at the time by starting to learn processes from other departments. I memorised these. I memorised the T&Cs and knew these like the back of my hand. I was soaking up information like a sponge. 

Battling Imposter Syndrome

January rolled around very quickly, and I had to start thinking about whether I was going to stay working or go back to school. For what felt like forever, I had been so unsure. In general and about everything.Then the Pandemic hit and life seemed even more confusing and uncertain. 
But here was this field that I had never thought of at all. And I was sure of this. And I was sure that I was good at it too. Fraud Prevention. It made me feel energised. 

I knew then that going to University at that moment was the wrong thing to do. 
I stayed. I started thinking about progression there. 

Fork two successfully dealt with!

Seven months in, I got an email: 

From: Fraud Strategy
    Hi,
Have you ever thought about applying for the team?
(There was more to the email but the excitement blinded me a bit!)

In truth, I had not! I didn't even know for certain what Fraud Strategy did! 
 
But, here was the confirmation I needed, that I had made the right decision in staying.
I worked the next few months to learn more. To be involved in more. To absorb more. 
To experience new cases. To speak to new people. To make sure that if a role in the Fraud Strategy team became available, I would feel sure enough in myself to apply.
Then when I did apply, I went OTT (Over The Top) and did eight pages of preparation for the interviews. 
And when I got the role, I threw myself head first into it and into learning. 
Then when I got the opportunity to leave to work in Merchants and deal with a whole different side of fraud prevention, I took it. Fork!

I was extremely lucky to have such inspiring and supportive people who kept (and keep) me going, kept me entertained with new challenges, and believed in me even when I didn’t.

Fraud is constantly changing and diversifying. Working in Fraud Prevention definitely gets me up in the morning now, but it might not in the next five or ten years. (Who knows?)

If it doesn’t, and I decide to change course completely, I can at least be confident in saying that working in Fraud has helped me learn how to face difficult forks on the road. 
I am constantly learning how to keep in balance. 
Fraud with False Positives.
Sales with Losses.
Good customers with bad customers.
Certainty with uncertainty. 

If there is anything to take away from this it’s that opportunities come and go. You can’t always be certain that the decision you make is the right one. Sometimes you find out a lot later on! Trust in yourself and you’ll trust in your decisions. Keep looking for new things and ways to learn. Which is why I applied for the apprenticeship! Fork!

And finally - You may not always be certain of yourself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go all in. 

Maia Rocio Gonzalez is a Payment Fraud Specialist and Level 4 Data Fellowship apprentice at Multiverse based in the UK. Maia’s writing for the Apprentice Lens as part of the Blogging Team. Here’s more about her :

‘Hey! I’m Maia. Aside from working in fraud prevention, I like to get stuck in with all things artsy. I love to paint, draw, knit, sew, crochet - if I don’t already do it, I’m certainly open to learning it! Fun fact about me - I used to tell people I’d never have an office job or work with numbers and now I do just that and love it.’