The First 48 Hours After a Fraud Is Discovered

The instinct, when a business first discovers it may have been defrauded, is to confront the counterparty immediately. That instinct is usually wrong.

The first 48 hours matter more than almost any other stage of a fraud claim, and not because of anything to do with the courtroom. It's because evidence — emails, access logs, financial records — can be altered or deleted within hours of a counterparty realising it's under suspicion. The priority is preservation, not confrontation.

Clients who call us in the first 48 hours are, in our experience, materially better positioned six months later than clients who call us after the confrontation has already happened. It's the single highest-leverage piece of advice we give, and the easiest one to miss in the moment.