Investigator, Fraud

Overview

At Community Financial System, Inc. (CFSI), we are dedicated to providing our customers with friendly, personalized, high‑quality financial services and products. Our retail division, Community Bank, N.A., operates more than 200 customer facilities across Upstate New York, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont and Western Massachusetts. Beyond retail banking, we also offer commercial banking, wealth management, investment management, insurance and risk management, and benefit plan administration.

Just as our employees are committed to helping our customers manage their finances, we’re committed to our employees. After all, they make it happen for our customers every day. To ensure our people can enjoy long and successful careers here at CFSI, we offer competitive compensation, great benefits, and professional development and advancement opportunities. As an equal‑opportunity workplace and affirmative‑action employer, we celebrate and support a diverse workplace for the benefit of all: our employees, customers and communities.

The Fraud Investigator is responsible for conducting complex fraud investigations involving suspicious account activity, transactional anomalies, payment‑related fraud events, customer fraud claims, scam‑related losses, account takeover activity, check fraud, digital banking abuse, and other elevated fraud matters. This role serves as an experienced individual contributor within the Bank’s fraud investigations function and is responsible for developing investigative findings, assessing fraud exposure, identifying broader patterns of risk, and recommending actions to mitigate loss and protect the Bank and its customers.

The Fraud Investigator is expected to operate with a high degree of independence and sound judgment in the review and resolution of complex fraud matters. This position is designed as an advanced professional role within the fraud investigations career path and serves as a developmental step toward leadership and broader operational oversight within the investigations function.

Essential Duties:

• Conduct complex fraud investigations involving suspicious activity, payment anomalies, customer fraud events, scam‑related losses, account takeover, check fraud, ACH and wire concerns, card‑related activity, digital banking misuse, and other elevated fraud matters.
• Analyze account histories, transactional activity, payment flows, channel behavior, relationship linkages, case chronology, customer interactions, and system records to determine fraud exposure, root cause, and appropriate action.
• Develop clear investigative findings, case narratives, timelines, and recommendations related to account actions, loss mitigation, recovery efforts, restrictions, closures, monitoring, and escalation.
• Identify patterns of suspicious behavior, repeat victimization, organized activity, operational vulnerabilities, and emerging fraud typologies that may require broader review or control enhancement.
• Apply sound risk‑based judgment in determining case severity, next steps, escalation thresholds, and investigative outcomes while balancing customer impact and operational practicality.
• Work across internal fraud systems, core banking platforms, transaction monitoring tools, case management systems, research tools, and related bank technologies to conduct investigations and document findings.
• Maintain a working understanding of how banking transactions move through operational systems, including payment processing flows, file transmission processes, exception handling, posting environments, and related fraud points of exposure.
• Operate with a working understanding of applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, and internal policy requirements relevant to fraud investigations, account action, payments, customer claims, records, and case documentation.
• Partner with Operations, Deposit Operations, Branch Administration, Customer Care, Digital Banking, Information Security, Physical Security, Compliance, BSA/AML, Legal, and other stakeholders to support effective case resolution and coordinated fraud response.
• Support management reporting, trend identification, procedural…