Who is Auditing Your Fuel Cards Transactions?

These are two stories of many that come out daily.

City worker stole gas, authorities say

A former night watchman for the City of Chicago was charged Thursday with theft of government property after he stole more than 300 gallons of gasoline from city pumps last year, authorities said.

City worker, 23, swiped his employee ID fleet card to activate the pumps, filled up his personal car with gas and then doctored fleet fuel logs to cover his theft, said Assistant State’s Atty. Jean McGuire. He stole gas on about 30 occasions from April to November with the fleet fuel card.

Inspector General David Hoffman said his office began investigating the employee after receiving a tip last year. Investigators uncovered the thefts by combing through old fuel card records, he said.

The city worker made $17 an hour working for the city’s Department of General Services.

Sokolis Recommendations:

The fleet cards should have had better controls associated with it. Exception reports should have been provided and reviewed daily. Continued review of records would have caught this issue sooner.

In most cases, companies do not know or do not like to fully admit what was stolen from them. In this case we believe over $2,000 of fueling was stolen. This could have been fuel savings to the city with the right fleet credit card. How many other employees are stealing?

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City worker arrested in fuel theft

Richmond police have arrested a city schools employee in the apparent theft of thousands of dollars worth of diesel fuel prices.

City worker, 43, of the 3600 block of Millers Lane was charged with grand larceny.

Police said an audit of fuel card transactions made with Richmond schools fuel credit cards indicated that on various days in October through December, there were multiple fill-ups exceeding the fueling capacity of a school bus recorded within minutes of one another.

According to police, three fuel credit cards were used to purchase about 27,000 gallons of fueling, costing the city about $73,000 in diesel fuel pricing. A detective said in a statement that police concluded that fuel obtained by using the fleet card was being sold to third parties.

Sokolis Recommendations:

Your fleet management should have per transaction and daily limits on your fuel card. Make drivers put in mileage and/or review miles per gallon. Audits of fleet credit card records will reduce this from happening in your fuel management system.

In our estimated opinion, over $100,000 was stolen by just this one worker using his fleet card. This could have been fuel savings to the city. Who knows if diesel fuel additives were stolen as well since the police believe it could have been sold to fuel companies. If you do not have someone watching your fleet management records closely, it could be happening to your company. Most fleet fuel theft occurs from employees. All companies need to have close fuel card controls to prevent this and have a fuel management system to catch it.