Game theoretic modelling of service agent warranty fraud

Abstract

When a warranty provider outsources warranty servicing to an external service agent this agent may act in a fraudulent manner. In this paper we consider a special case of service agent fraud—with the service agent overbilling the warranty provider for some of the warranty claims. A detailed inspection of a claim may be made to identify whether or not the service agent has committed fraud, but this inspection involves an additional cost to the warranty provider. This cost may be recovered by imposing a penalty on the service agent whenever a fraud is committed and it is detected. This penalty is specified in the maintenance service contract. A game theoretic approach is used to find the optimal overbilling strategy for the service agent and the optimal inspection strategy for the warranty provider. The optimal solution is the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium of a static game between the two parties.