Even though you don't have a police badge, you still fight crimes and protect people from illegal attacks in your job as a fraud specialist. Fraud specialists work for banks or financial institutions to investigate fraud on customers' accounts. By monitoring transactions and tracking suspicious financial activity, fraud specialists identify potential risks to customers' assets.
As a fraud specialist, you will observe customers' banking patterns and red flag any transaction that veers from the usual transaction patters. Tracing suspicious transaction amounts, types, or partners, you have to spot information that proves criminal activity. It's up to you to suspend accounts under attack and to verify if any illegal activities occured against the customer's assets.
This position requires an investigative mind prone to analytical thinking. You will work in a corporate office environment, monitoring accounts and accessing necessary information the moment suspicious activities arise.
Fraud Specialist Overview
Working as a Fraud Specialist
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a fraud specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.08 an hour? That's $33,443 a year!
What Does a Fraud Specialist Do
There are certain skills that many fraud specialists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed detail oriented, physical strength and communication skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a fraud specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 24.2% of fraud specialists included fraud trends, while 10.9% of resumes included communication, and 10.0% of resumes included outbound calls. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the fraud specialist job title. But what industry to start with? Most fraud specialists actually find jobs in the finance and retail industries.
How To Become a Fraud Specialist
If you're interested in becoming a fraud specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 33.5% of fraud specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 6.7% of fraud specialists have master's degrees. Even though some fraud specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a fraud specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a fraud specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on fraud specialist resumes include associate degree degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a fraud specialist. In fact, many fraud specialist jobs require experience in a role such as customer service representative. Meanwhile, many fraud specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as cashier or sales associate.
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Fraud Specialist Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of fraud analyst you might progress to a role such as analyst eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title account manager.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Fraud Specialist
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
State of Oklahoma Fraud Specialist II Fraud Specialist II | State of Oklahoma State of Oklahoma | 01/21/2021 01/21/2021 | $46,36701/21/2021 $46,367 |
Randstad Fraud Specialist Fraud Specialist | Randstad Randstad | 01/13/2021 01/13/2021 | $33,39201/13/2021 $33,392 |
Randstad Fraud Specialist Fraud Specialist | Randstad Randstad | 01/13/2021 01/13/2021 | $54,26201/13/2021 $54,262 |
Discover Financial Services Fraud Specialist-Customer Service PM Shift Fraud Specialist-Customer Service PM Shift | Discover Financial Services Discover Financial Services | 11/25/2020 11/25/2020 | $33,39211/25/2020 $33,392 |
Robert Half Fraud Specialist Fraud Specialist | Robert Half Robert Half | 11/24/2020 11/24/2020 | $39,65311/24/2020 $39,653 |
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Fraud Specialist Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Fraud Specialist. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Fraud Specialist Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Fraud Specialist resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Fraud Specialists
1. California State University - Bakersfield
Bakersfield, CA • Public
2. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Public
3. San Diego State University
San Diego, CA • Public
4. SUNY Farmingdale
Farmingdale, NY • Public
5. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
6. Howard University
Washington, DC • Private
7. SUNY at Albany
Albany, NY • Public
8. Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC • Public
9. SUNY College at Plattsburgh
Plattsburgh, NY • Public
10. SUNY College at Oswego
Oswego, NY • Public
Top Skills For a Fraud Specialist
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 24.2% of fraud specialists listed fraud trends on their resume, but soft skills such as detail oriented and physical strength are important as well.
- Fraud Trends, 24.2%
- Communication, 10.9%
- Outbound Calls, 10.0%
- Suspicious Activity, 4.8%
- Credit Card, 4.4%
- Other Skills, 45.7% See All Fraud Specialist Skills
Best States For a Fraud Specialist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a fraud specialist. The best states for people in this position are New York, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Fraud specialists make the most in New York with an average salary of $51,737. Whereas in Delaware and New Jersey, they would average $46,258 and $45,287, respectively. While fraud specialists would only make an average of $45,266 in Rhode Island, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Delaware
$46,259
Avg. Salary
2. Rhode Island
$45,267
Avg. Salary
3. Pennsylvania
$44,697
Avg. Salary