What did we learn at Fraud Fight Club III?

At Fraud Fight Club Round 3, I had the opportunity to chat with three fraud and risk leaders whose work spans banking operations, large-scale investigations, and victim advocacy. 

The conversations covered check fraud, payment scams, red-teaming strategy, and the under-reporting problem in romance fraud … and collectively made a case for something the industry doesn't always say plainly: fraud has human consequences that extend well beyond financial loss.

Fraud Fight Club 2026: Three Perspectives from the Frontlines

Denise Schott — SVP, Head of Financial Crimes Fraud Operations | Regions Bank

Denise has spent more than three decades in banking fraud, including nearly 30 years at what is now JPMorgan Chase. When I chatted with her at Fraud Fight Club, the advice she led with had nothing to do with fraud tactics: change roles every five to six years. The reasoning is straightforward: fresh eyes on your own processes expose blind spots, and stepping into a new function forces the kind of learning that doesn't happen when you stay in the same seat.

On the fraud side, her team's current focus reflects a broader industry shift. Fraudsters have largely moved away from account takeover in favor of manipulating customers directly into sending payments (a vector that's harder to intercept and easier to execute at scale). Payment fraud and business email compromise (BEC) are the primary areas of concern.

On check fraud: despite repeated predictions of its decline, Schott said it's running two to three times higher than pre-2021 levels. “I don't think check fraud will ever go away.”

“It used to be all about blocking accounts and saving money. It really turned into balancing risk and customer experience.”

Amy Davis — Director, Fraud Investigations, US Card | Capital One

I spoke with Amy Davis at Fraud Fight Club about one of the harder organizational challenges in fraud prevention: making the case for red-teaming fraud vectors before losses materialize. Her approach is twofold: use regulatory expectation as a lever (examiners already want to see evidence that controls are being tested), and start with simple use cases before scaling to more complex scenarios. Demonstrate capability incrementally rather than asking for a full mandate upfront.

On how fraud organizations operate, Davis quoted a colleague whose framing is worth holding onto: "There are only four fraudsters in the world, and everyone else is working for those four." The implication is significant: Fraud isn't a diffuse, opportunistic problem. It's organized infrastructure, with supply chains, call centers, and help desks. And it actively probes defenses for weaknesses.

“You can see where the fraudsters have tested your threshold and your stability checks. You can't be static. You have to be ready to change your defenses.”

Tracy Hall — Author, Speaker & Fraud Victim Advocate | tracyhall.com.au

Tracy Hall was one of the most impactful guests on the Fraud Fight Club agenda. She lost over $300,000 to Australia's most notorious conman, spent two years not talking about it, and then decided her story was more useful as testimony than as something to protect.

When I spoke with her at the conference, she led with the statistic that anchors her advocacy work: between 30 and 90% of fraud victims never report. For romance fraud, the rate skews toward the high end. The primary barrier is shame, compounded by media coverage that historically centers the victim's perceived naivety rather than the perpetrator's conduct.

In response, Hall co-authored a language guide with the Australian government — nine principles for journalists and organizations covering financial crime. The framing shift is deliberate: a victim did not "lose" money. Money was stolen from them. The criminal belongs in the headline, not the victim's judgment call.

“I speak on behalf of the people who don't have their own strength yet.”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Fraud Fight Club?

Fraud Fight Club is an industry event that brings together fraud prevention professionals, financial crime investigators, and risk leaders across banking and financial services to share insights, trends, and strategies for fighting fraud.

What fraud trends are fraud fighters looking at in 2026?

Based on my conversations at Fraud Fight Club Round 3, the key areas of focus include payment fraud and authorized push payment scams, business email compromise (BEC), check fraud (which remains persistently high), AI-generated document fraud, and deepfake-enabled scams targeting consumers directly.

Why do romance fraud victims not report?

According to Tracy Hall, a fraud victim advocate who lost over $300,000 to a conman, shame is the primary barrier. Between 30 and 90% of fraud victims never report — and for romance fraud, the rate is even higher. Victims often blame themselves and fear reputational damage, especially when media coverage focuses on the victim rather than the criminal.

What is the difference between payment fraud and account takeover fraud?

Account takeover fraud involves a bad actor gaining unauthorized access to an existing customer's account. Payment fraud, increasingly the more common vector, involves tricking a legitimate customer into authorizing a payment themselves, often through social engineering, romance scams, or business email compromise. As Denise Schott of Regions Bank noted, fraudsters have shifted toward payment fraud because it's harder to detect and easier to execute.

Related Reading

• Love Con Revenge: What fraud leaders can learn from Netflix's romance scam docuseries — I spoke with Angela Diaz and Michael Coomer about AI scams and how the patterns in the documentary mirror what fraud teams see every day.
• 2026 State of Document Fraud Report — Inscribe's annual data on fraud trends across document types, including check fraud and AI-generated documents.
• From forgeries to deepfakes: Document fraud in the age of generative AI — How document fraud has evolved and why manual review is no longer sufficient.

These conversations are part of my ongoing coverage of fraud fighters across financial services. Subscribe to Inside Inscribe to get more.

Denise Schott Denise Schott manages fraud operations at Regions Bank, overseeing customer claims, fraud detection, and new account screening. She brings nearly 30 years of banking fraud experience, including time at JPMorgan Chase going back to its Bank One days. She's spent her career balancing loss prevention with customer experience — and she'll tell you check fraud is never going away.

Amy Davis Amy Davis leads fraud investigations for US Card at Capital One, covering external fraud rings, internal fraud, coordinated scam events, and law enforcement coordination. She's one of the sharper thinkers on how organized financial crime actually operates — and why most fraud fighters underestimate the infrastructure behind it.

Tracy Hall Tracy Hall is an author, speaker, and advocate for victims of romance and intimate fraud. She's a survivor herself — and after two years of silence, she went public and never stopped. She now works as a bridge between corporate organizations, government, and consumers, and speaks on behalf of people who don't yet have their own strength to do so.