A Deloitte & Touche poll revealed that most companies have not crafted policies to ban pretexting, which exposes them to potential criminal liability if their employees or investigators use deception to gather information in a probe.

In an online poll of 230 executives during a Webcast conducted by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services late last year, 42 percent said their companies had no written pretexting guidelines, and 45 percent said they didn’t know if their company had such policies.