What is up fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward!

This is one of those conversations every fraud, risk, payments, and operations leader should hear.

We spend a lot of time talking about fraud losses, scam trends, and faster payments. What we do not always unpack is where the real breakdown happens in the payment journey. Does it start at onboarding? Does it show up in authentication? Is speed the issue? Is recovery the problem? Or are institutions still misreading what payment controls are actually designed to do?

In this episode, I sit down with Kyle Caldwell from The Clearing House to unpack payments fraud prevention the way teams actually experience it in the real world:

1. Before a payment starts
2. During payment initiation
3. After the funds are sent

Because once the money moves, everything changes.

That is the core message of this episode. Payments fraud prevention is not only about the rail. It is about the full lifecycle.

Kyle brings a practical perspective to one of the biggest myths in our space. Faster payments are not automatically the cause of more fraud. In many cases, the payment itself is just the final stage of a much earlier breakdown involving identity, compromise, or weak controls.

If you work in community banking fraud prevention, credit union fraud prevention, or broader fraud operations strategy, this episode gives you a more useful way to think about risk, controls, and response in a real-time environment.

1. Why payments fraud prevention needs to begin long before the payment rail
2. How institutions often confuse rail risk with customer compromise
3. Where RTP fraud prevention differs from ACH fraud recovery and wire fraud recovery
4. Which payment initiation fraud controls exist in real-time payments that many teams overlook
5. How indemnity and recovery work in the RTP environment
6. Why real time decisioning matters more than relying on investigation after the fact
7. Where firms are overbuilt on detection but underprepared on prevention
8. Why collaboration across institutions still matters
9. What fraud leaders should be planning for as payment lifecycle fraud evolves in 2026

1. Lead fraud, risk, payments, or operations at a financial institution
2. Are reviewing RTP fraud prevention or strengthening instant payments fraud controls
3. Want to improve fraud prevention before payment initiation
4. Need a better approach to post payment fraud recovery
5. Are building a stronger financial institution fraud strategy
6. Want practical insight from The Clearing House perspective

If this episode gave you something useful, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another fraud fighter. It helps more people find the show and strengthens the community.

What is up fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward!

AI is accelerating fraud, 100 percent. But the bigger risk, the thing that should keep every fraud leader up at night, is what happens when fraud teams stop thinking strategically because the queue never ends.

In Part 2 of Fraud Forward, I’m back with Ted Josephson, VP of Bank Fraud & Credit Strategy at Synchrony Financial, and we are getting into fraud leadership at the enterprise level, where strategy, AI, automation, and culture collide.

Because let me just assure you, fraud prevention at scale requires more than tools. It requires fraud leadership strategies, fraud team leadership that protects time for long-term planning, and strategic fraud solutions that can separate normal fraud noise from the signals of a true fraud shift.

Then we get direct about AI. Where it’s delivering real value today, where the industry is still overhyping “AI” that is not actually learning, and why certain decisions, especially first-party fraud, should never be fully automated without human accountability and empathy.

And fraud fighters, we close with what Ted thinks is being underestimated right now, and it’s big. Agentic commerce creating a new accountability and disputes nightmare, plus the rise of casual “friendly fraud” as a cultural norm. Because fraud prevention evolution is not just a technology program, it is bank fraud leadership and credit risk leadership in action. This is fraud prevention innovation, and it demands strategic fraud decisions.

1. How enterprise fraud teams protect time for long-term strategy when fraud never stops
2. Why planning cannot be an extra, it has to be scheduled like any other critical operating function
3. How to tell the difference between normal fraud noise and the signals of a systemic weakness
4. What separates a short-term spike from a true fraud shift
5. Where AI is delivering real value today, including consistent case narratives and operational efficiency
6. Where the industry is still overhyping “AI” that is not actually learning
7. Why certain decisions, especially first-party fraud, should never be fully automated without human accountability and empathy
8. Why agentic commerce could create a new accountability and disputes nightmare
9. How casual “friendly fraud” is becoming normalized, and why that cultural shift matters
10. How banking fraud strategy and credit strategy leadership collide in enterprise fraud teams

1. Lead fraud solutions leadership efforts and you feel like the urgent is crowding out the important
2. Run fraud prevention at scale and need a better framework to separate noise from true fraud shifts
3. Are building fraud leadership development for your team and want practical, real-world strategy
4. Manage enterprise fraud teams and need strategic fraud insights you can apply immediately
5. Own bank fraud leadership responsibilities and want to pressure test your strategic fraud solutions
6. Are navigating credit risk leadership decisions alongside fraud risk and disputes
7. Are worried about agentic commerce, dispute accountability, and what comes next
8. Are watching “friendly fraud” become a cultural norm and need fraud leadership strategies to respond

If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps with getting the word out.

What is up fraud fighters and welcome to Fraud Forward.

In this episode we sit down with Ted Josephson, VP of Bank Fraud and Credit Strategy at Synchrony Financial, to talk about what advanced fraud solutions leadership really looks like when fraud prevention moves beyond reacting to threats and becomes part of enterprise strategy.

Ted’s path into the fraud space did not start in a fraud department. It started in banking operations working branches, call centers, and digital systems. That kind of experience shapes how leaders approach fraud prevention because they understand how financial institutions actually function day to day.

And that perspective matters.

Because strong fraud leadership is not just about stopping bad transactions. It is about building resilient teams, aligning fraud prevention with credit strategy leadership, and making strategic fraud decisions that protect both customers and institutions at scale.

Throughout the conversation we explore how enterprise fraud teams evolve as institutions grow and why fraud leaders must shift from tactical problem solving to long term strategy.

In this episode we discuss

• How fraud leaders transition from investigators to strategic decision makers

• Why enterprise fraud solutions require strong collaboration across fraud, credit, and risk teams

• What changes when organizations scale fraud prevention across millions of accounts

• Why the language fraud leaders use internally can shape executive decisions

• How modern fraud threats require both advanced technology and human judgment

This episode is for you if

• You lead banking fraud prevention teams and want to strengthen your fraud leadership strategies

• You work in credit risk, compliance, or financial crime teams navigating enterprise fraud decisions

• You support credit union fraud prevention programs and want insights from large scale fraud organizations

• You are building advanced fraud prevention programs and want to understand how leadership drives fraud prevention innovation

Fraud leadership today requires more than tools and alerts. It requires strategy, communication, and the ability to guide teams through uncertainty while fraud threats continue to evolve.

If you enjoy the conversation, make sure to subscribe to Fraud Forward on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

Stay vigilant, stay informed, and keep moving fraud forward.

Fraudsters aren’t only targeting customers anymore. They’re targeting fraud teams.

In this episode of Fraud Forward, Hailey Windham sits down with Jared Gruenberg to explain how fake LinkedIn companies are using Easy Apply and “pre-interview” screening emails to harvest operational intelligence; the exact tools, signals, and investigation workflows that fraud, AML, and compliance teams use to stop bad actors.

Jared shares the real-world pattern he found across multiple impersonated companies, including suspicious hiring volume, fake employee profiles, brand-new domains, and fast follow-ups that push candidates to answer detailed technical questions. The goal isn’t just personal data, it’s industry mapping. When attackers collect hundreds of answers from experienced candidates, they can tune their tactics, probe specific vendor controls, and even train themselves to pass recruiter screens.

Hailey and Jared also dig into why this works: LinkedIn’s trust factor, the low-friction nature of Easy Apply, and the human reality of burnout, layoffs, and career pressure that makes “two taps on your phone” feel worth it.

Topics covered:

• How fake LinkedIn companies use Easy Apply as an attack surface

• The signals that reveal impersonation and resume-harvesting rings

• Why fraud, AML, and compliance resumes are especially valuable

• How “technical screening” emails turn into playbook extraction

• What attackers can do with aggregated investigator responses

• Why burnout and layoffs increase vulnerability, even for experts

• Practical steps to protect fraud knowledge and share intelligence safely

🎙 Guest lineup:

Jared Gruenberg — Fraud investigator and author of “Your Fraud Team Is Leaking Your Defense Playbook Right Now”

Hailey Windham — Host of Fraud Forward & Community Banking Lead, Sardine

👉 Subscribe for more real-world fraud insights from the people closest to the risk.

“It’s always Day One” sounds like a startup cliché… until you hear it from someone who’s spent his career on the front lines of threat finance.

In this episode of Fraud Forward, host Hailey Windham sits down with Ari Redbord (Global Head of Policy & Government Affairs at TRM Labs) to unpack how financial crime prevention is evolving as crypto, traditional finance, and AI-driven scams collide. Ari’s path spans federal prosecution in D.C., the U.S. Treasury, sanctions and terrorism financing, giving him a rare view of where policy, investigations, and technology actually meet.

Hailey and Ari get real about what “public–private partnership” should mean in practice (spoiler: not more roundtables), and why real-time disruption networks are the model forward. They break down why “crypto crime” is a misleading label, how blockchain transparency changes investigations, and what TradFi still does better when it comes to governance and mature controls.

They also dig into the operational reality teams are wrestling with right now: AI moving faster than regulation, scams scaling with generative tooling, and the risk of falling behind if fraud and compliance don’t learn how to harness new tech without losing human judgment.

The core takeaway is simple: the threats are moving faster, across more rails, and complacency is the real risk, so the mindset has to stay Day One.

Guest lineup:

1. Ari Redbord: Global Head of Policy & Government Affairs at TRM Labs
2. Hailey Windham: Host of Fraud Forward and Community Banking Lead at Sardine

Know your customer (KYC) was never designed to be fraud control, yet fraud programs across the industry treat it like one. In this episode of Fraud Forward, host Hailey Windham sits down with Steve Lenderman, Head of Fraud Prevention at iSolve, for a necessary conversation about what KYC actually does, what it can't do, and why that distinction matters more than ever.

Steve and Hailey challenge the assumption that passing KYC means an identity is safe to trust. They explore why every fraud eventually passes KYC, how synthetic identities exploit static verification, and what AI has revealed about the limitations of one-time checks. From the gap between identity existence and identity ownership to the behavioral signals that matter after onboarding, this episode reframes KYC as a starting point, not a solution.

The highlights:

1. Why every fraud eventually passes KYC
2. The gap between identity existence and identity ownership
3. Behavioral signals that matter after onboarding
4. Why AI didn't break KYC, rather how it just exposed what was already broken

Guest lineup:

1. Steve Lenderman: Head of Fraud Prevention at iSolve
2. Hailey Windham: Host of Fraud Forward and Community Banking Lead at Sardine

Agentic commerce sounds futuristic, until it starts hitting your auth flows, your dispute queues, and your monitoring pipelines.

In this episode of Fraud Forward, host Hailey Windham sits down with Chen Zamir, Head of Fraud Strategy at Sardine and Founder of Native Risk, to unpack what happens when AI agents don’t just recommend, they act. They browse, click, checkout, retry, and optimize at machine speed, sometimes with no human in the loop.

Hailey and Chen break down the two flavors of agentic commerce (API/MCP-based vs. in-browser agents), then get direct about the fraud pressure that follows any new payment-adjacent product. They dig into the first typologies likely to spike, why “secure protocols” won’t solve the real problems, and the OTP timing trap that makes step-up friction feel irrelevant when the customer is asleep, offline, or busy on purpose.

They also cover the downstream damage teams aren’t modeling yet: rising abandonment, risk scores inflated by failed challenges, messier proof of intent, and a stack that struggles to separate agentic flows from everything else.

The core takeaway is simple: fraud teams need to identify, route, and manage agent-driven transactions as a distinct channel before the ecosystem forces the issue.

Guest lineup:

1. Chen Zamir: Head of Fraud Strategy at Sardine, founder of NativeRisk
2. Hailey Windham: Host of Fraud Forward and Community Banking Lead at Sardine

Fraud programs often measure what is easiest, not what’s most important. In this episode of Fraud Forward, host Hailey Windham welcomes back Frank McKenna for an honest, wide-ranging conversation about the realities fraud leaders are facing today.

Frank and Hailey dig into where fraud hides in plain sight, why so many losses are misclassified as credit risk, and how institutions consistently overreact to trends while underinvesting in the fraud already hitting their balance sheets. They explore the role AI is truly playing in fraud today, where it adds value, where it falls short, and why humans must remain firmly in the loop.

From loan fraud and credit washing to insider threats, identity overinvestment, and the long-term impact of bad fraud decisions on customers and employees, this episode challenges comfortable assumptions and legacy thinking. It is a candid discussion about what fraud teams need to stop doing, what they need to do differently, and how fraud is becoming an existential issue for financial institutions.

Guest lineup:

1. Frank McKenna: Chief Fraud Strategist, Co-Founder at Point Predictive
2. Hailey Windham: Host of Fraud Forward and Community Banking Lead at Sardine

Links:

1. Frank on Fraud
2. No Brakes, No Limits. Our Fraud Predictions For 2026 - Frank on Fraud