During a routine audit of a customer service hotline, an internal auditor noticed that an unusually high number of customer complaints pertained to payments not being applied to the customers' accounts. Which of the following would most likely be the reason for the high volume of complaints?
Check tampering by an employee could be the most likely reason for the high volume of complaints about payments not being applied to customers' accounts. If an employee is intercepting and tampering with checks, these payments would not get recorded properly in the system, leading to unresolved complaints from customers regarding their payments not being applied. This scenario directly addresses the issue described, whereas other options are less likely to cause this specific problem.
why not B?
While poor controls in invoice approval processes could contribute to various issues such as late payments or errors in billing, it's less directly related to the specific problem described in the scenario, which is about payments not being applied to customers' accounts.