When to escalate
Suspicion on reasonable grounds is judged objectively, so the question is not how certain you feel. It is what a reasonable person in your position would conclude from the same record.
Escalating means handing a case to somebody with the authority to decide it, usually because it may meet the threshold for a report. It is a judgement about the record, not about how worried you are.
Suspicion is not a feeling
The Australian trigger is suspicion on reasonable grounds, and reasonable grounds is assessed objectively. The test is what a reasonable person in your position would conclude from the same information. Personal certainty is not required, and personal unease is not sufficient.
The practical version: could you set out the grounds in two sentences that a stranger would find reasonable? If you can, the threshold is likely met. If every attempt comes out as "it just does not look right", you have unease rather than grounds, and the gap between them is more investigation.
Both errors cost something
| Escalating too readily | Escalating too late |
|---|---|
| Reviewers stop reading carefully, because most of what reaches them is noise. | The timeframe is short, and a case that drifted has already failed whatever it concludes. |
| The genuine cases wait behind the rest. | The record shows the grounds existed and nobody acted on them. |
| Your own reporting looks indiscriminate to a regulator. | The customer may transact again in the meantime. |
Four things that are not reasons to escalate
- A high score
A vendor’s opinion is where an investigation starts. It is not grounds on its own.
- An unavailable check
Missing information is a reason to finish the check, not to escalate on it. Record it as unscreened and chase it.
- Unfamiliarity
A chain, a token or a corridor you have not seen before is a reason to learn it. Novelty is not suspicion.
- Wanting cover
Escalating to be safe moves the judgement rather than making it, and the record shows that is what happened.
Escalating does not commit you
Handing a case on is not a conclusion that a report is required. It says the question has passed the point where you should decide it alone. The reviewer may close it, and a case closed after escalation is a working programme rather than a wasted escalation.
Two constraints come with the decision. Tipping off is a separate offence, so once suspicion has formed, what you may put to the customer changes and your own procedure says how. And a fresh suspicion about a customer you have reported before is its own report, cross-referenced to the earlier one rather than covered by it.
What this changes
Write the grounds before you escalate, not after. If the two sentences will not come, that is the answer: keep investigating, or close with the explanation you found. The sentences you can write are the test, and they are also the thing the reviewer needs first.
Related
How to run a case
How to scope an investigation, what order to establish facts in and how to tell when you have enough.
What makes a finding material
A finding is an observation that bears on the question you are answering and that you can point at a source for. Most of what an investigation turns up is neither.
Last checked against the product on .