Diesel Fuel Losses Happen Everywhere

It has always been known that diesel fuel losses take place. The issue most companies always thought they had in the past is how to control diesel fuel theft with their drivers. With truck drivers running around and fleet fueling prices going up and down, fuel theft should not be a surprise. Some companies are well aware of the problem and others aren’t.

The reality is, diesel fuel losses happen everywhere. As we have all read in the headlines over the past few weeks, it could be a truck stop trying to make money. It could be your driver stealing fuel; fuel being siphoned out of your truck ( which is the least likely of all). Or how about these:

• Your discount at a truck stop was not set up correctly with your fuel card provider. This just happened last week with a client of ours; major truck stop chain that is not in the news and major fuel card company that would have resulted in a loss of $40,000 if not caught.
• Mobile fueling providers process your diesel fuel transactions multiple times through a fuel card. Not on purpose, just real system issues for the fuel card company. We catch tens of thousands of dollars a month with this happening.
• Bulk fuel your company gets charged for: the day before or day after price, added freight cost or demerge fees, and no one at your company is watching
• A major truck stop (another major chain that was not in the headlines) has system issues. Over 20 of our clients had discounts wiped out for several weeks, until we detected the problem. Most clients received a credit back of $3,000 to $6,000. Honest mistake, but had it gone unnoticed. We’re are only talking a few cents a gallon, but it could still be happening today if missed. Maybe it is happening to you?

It takes solid fleet fuel card controls and fuel audits to truly know if your company can be getting hurt by diesel fuel theft.

When your driver has your company fuel card, a lot of damage can be done to a company’s piggy bank if you don’t have proper fueling controls in place. We could tell you hundreds of stories in added diesel fuel costs because no one person or team of people were closely watching all of the fuel transactions.

If your company buys its diesel fuel over the road, you probably use some type of fuel card or fleet credit card. These fleet fuel cards have controls, but you have to put them in place and adjust them.

If you have a bulk fuel tank that doesn’t have a card system and your drivers are writing down how many gallons go into there truck, good luck with that!

This goes for just about anything, but this phrase always sticks in my head. “They don’t respect, what you don’t inspect”.

Most companies best defense is good fuel management or fleet management program. A team of people reviewing fuel transactions with a very active fleet manager or fuel manager to make sure you are not losing any money because of fleet fueling fraud or diesel fuel theft.

Of course for most companies time is not on their side. There are many tasks that need to be covered during the day to keep operations running smoothly and customers happy.

You could outsource your fuel department. Companies outsource fleet management and repairs all of the time. They outsource driver compliance logs, IFTA filings and many other items. Some people might not even consider to be outsourced for these services. They would look at it as strategically sourced to a firm that knows more than they do and their company can focus on what it does best.

So strategically source your fuel department. After all when you have trucks there aren’t too many things more important than your fleet fuel, right? If you don’t have a fuel expert, why struggle? Not to mention the lack of endless headaches suffered when you have to deal with these diesel fuel fraud cases alone and with no support.

Fueling Good or Fueling Bad or Just Don’t Know, call 267-482-6159 or Click Here