What type of scheme involves an employee providing a friend with merchandise through a fake sale?

The scheme described in the question is appropriately identified as a false sale scheme. In this type of fraud, an employee creates the illusion of a legitimate transaction by recording a fictitious sale, which allows them to provide merchandise to an accomplice or friend without any actual purchase occurring. This manipulation effectively facilitates theft and misappropriation of assets while disguising the act as a normal sales transaction.

False sale schemes capitalize on the trust inherent in sales transactions. By ensuring that the apparent sale is documented, it may also evade detection during routine audits or inventory checks, especially if the employee has control over the sales recording system. The end result is that the employee is able to appropriate merchandise with no payment made, directly benefiting a friend or collaborator, which exemplifies the deceitful nature of this type of fraud.

Other types of schemes, such as skimming or register disbursement schemes, involve different mechanisms for perpetration and do not specifically describe the act of creating fictitious sales to divert merchandise. Similarly, purchasing and receiving schemes focus on areas related to procurement processes rather than fake sales, which reinforces that the correct categorization of this particular fraudulent act is indeed a false sale scheme.