However, according to Colin Yates, a fraud consultant and former head of fraud management at Vodafone, shrinking budgets mean that companies don't always spot illegal activity when the records are received.
The former head of the Fraud Squad, David Clarke, now a private fraud consultant at Today Advisory, applauded the Government's moves, but said: "We need a proper, concerted effort between law enforcement and Companies House, because at the moment we're still handing it on a silver platter to the villains".
The standard magnetic stripe cards will probably remain in circulation for years, said Seth Ruden, senior fraud consultant for the Americas at ACI Worldwide, a payment systems company.
They continue to claim that the $85 billion in this year's sequester can be covered by eliminating waste, fraud, consultants, and the inevitable grant to some obscure science or art project.
Janus Cercone, who wrote the screenplay for "Leap of Faith," a recent film that stars Steve Martin as a flimflam faith healer and credits Jay as the "Cons and Frauds Consultant," told me, "I talk to Ricky three times a day.
According to a study published in June by VFM Services, a fraud-consultant company, travel-insurance fraud is on the rise around the world.
"The F.S.A. was looked upon as a huge bureaucracy, handing out huge discussion papers and starting huge procedures resulting in relatively small fines," said Rowan Bosworth-Davies, a fraud prevention consultant and a former fraud squad detective at New Scotland Yard.
"Given the many questions regarding possible fraud by this consultant, I am immediately commencing an audit of Navigant's billing practices," Mr. Liu said.
The letter, signed by Charlotte E. Breeyear, director of the Bureau of Contracts, said the issue was whether there was any SAIC involvement in the scandal, in which "consultant fraud and money laundering charges" were announced last week by federal prosecutors.
In the case of Albert J. Pirro Jr. -- the husband of Jeanine Pirro, the Westchester district attorney -- who was convicted of tax fraud last year, a consultant recommended a prison camp with an alcohol rehabilitation program, because such programs can reduce a sentence dramatically, according to a lawyer who worked on the case.
Treasury officials said they were trying to warn consumers against fraud artists and consultants who are seeking to collect fees for helping homeowners negotiate with lenders.
