"There's a lot of pressure on companies and individuals," said Taylor, chief executive of Oversight Systems. Home and stock values have fallen and consumer debts have risen. Companies are held to much higher accounting standards and under laws such as Sarbanes Oxley.

Consequently, "When people are under financial pressure there's more of a temptation to cross the line," said Taylor. That line usually traverses the company's bottom line.

"You find the way to justify taking money from the company."

Worker theft, fraud and pilfering has increased during this recession, according to a recent survey of 507 certified fraud examiners. More than half said the number of frauds they've investigated during the past year has grown, and , 49 percent said they've seen more money lost to fraud.

Taylor and his team spend a lot of time, with the help of software, combing through a company's daily transactions looking for fraud, abuse or human error, all of which are costly.

Taylor has built a career on fraud-busting, having worked at Internet Security Sytems before running Oversight. Oversight's board and workforce includes a number of former ISS people.

The software Taylor's company uses acts as a "virtual auditor" often finding human errors and missteps.

Carpet and flooring giant Shaw Industries Group Inc. uses the process to help keep mistakes such as duplicate invoices or overpayments to a minimum. No small feat for a $5 billion company with some 25,000 vendors.

"We're finding personnel keying errors on a more timely basis," said Jim Kirkpatrick, Shaw's director of internal audit. A task that would have "involved going through tons and tons of data" in the past.

Even though fraud is rampant, Taylor says companies are reluctant to talk about the problem for fear of embarrassment. Most let the offending worker go without trying to recover the losses.

Taylor has uncovered lots of fraud but one case he found particularly "repugnant" involved a woman who told her company she had cancer. Instead of getting treatments, she spent her sick days at a spa where she charged the expenses to her company credit card and got reimbursed for medical expenses. "That turned my stomach. That's just wrong in so many ways."

Red flags of fraud

• Gift cards. Excessive gift cards purchases, especially from Home Depot and Wal-Mart, are often a red flag, Taylor says. Apparently, the two retailers consider sales receipts detailing a shopper's purchases proprietary information and won't share it with employers.
• Company cars, gas cards. As gas prices creep back up, there may be more worker scams at the gas pumps like this one: You take the company car to the gas station, have your spouse bring the family car and fill up both cars at the same time using the company credit card. Solution: Check for exorbitant gas and mileage use.
• Airline tickets. Taylor recalled a case where a worker who traveled overseas frequently for his company bought an airline ticket. The worker turned the ticket in for a voucher and then sold credit voucher on eBay and stayed home instead of going abroad on business, thereby pocketing the money and getting a mini vacation at the same time. Solution: look for details that accompany travel such as expenses for meals, hotel stay and other costs.
• Look for patterns of abuse. Wrong-doers always go back to the source of their fraud. If they get away with it once, they'll try it again, Taylor said.

First annual Fraudies awards
The folks at Oversight recently created these awards to highlight outrageous offenses culled from fraud cases nationwide:

• Best Musical Score: Workers at one company billed more than $100,000 in iTunes purchases to their corporate credit cards.
• Best Romantic Comedy of Errors: One employee spent $4,000 on Victoria Secret purchases for his mistress, which led to a lot of explaining to his boss --- and his wife.
• Best Medium for Fraud: One worker racked up $3,400 in charges to a psychic hotline. (Too bad the psychic didn't tell him about the job loss in his future.)