TERRE HAUTE, IN - Fleet Drivers Could Take Advantage Of Pay Before Pumping - Cash Back Rewards Are Astonishing - Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Our secret shopper experiences have uncovered many flaws at C-Stores, including (but not limited to): clerks who added non fuel items onto the fuel purchase, clerks who disguised non fuel items as fuel (a specialty for the savviest, well seasoned clerks), employees that pump 50 gallons of fuel, although their assigned vehicle only has a 35 gallon tank. The list goes on and on and on. What you are about to find is both shockingly revealing and disturbingly significant. Could this be going on in your company? How would you detect such deception?

Our tank was on E, so we thought we’d pull into a C-Store and fill up. What started out as a routine, innocent patronization of a C-Store, turned into one of the most underhanded secret shopper events we have on record. Here’s the way it all went down…

We pulled up to the pump with the anticipation of being able to get fuel with our company credit card. Once we came to a halt, we got out and tried to activate the pump. We were unable to do so immediately. After a few minutes of being dumfounded, we heard a voice come over the intercom saying, “Sir, you must either pay at the pump or come inside and prepay before the pump can be activated.” We understand that drive-aways are mostly responsible for this type of procedure nowadays. It seems to be the most logical system in place to assure the C-Store gets paid for the fuel. The story gets more complex, but in the end, your drivers could be getting paid each time they fuel.

We meandered inside to prepay. When we got up to the counter, we told the clerk that we wanted to fill up our vehicle on Pump #5. She said that we needed a specific amount because she just couldn’t “tell the machine we wanted a fill up.” We told her that we weren’t sure how much the fill up would cost. She interrupted, “You are really making a bigger deal of this than you should. If you just give me a set amount, and you don’t reach it, I’ll give you the difference back in cash.” All we could think of is, “Cha Ching, a bonus”. We told her $32 would suffice. She told us the pump would be activated after we lifted the nozzle, selected the fuel and pushed the Start button. We love C-Store clerks that keep their promises. 

We hustled to Pump #5 amazed at what we just heard. Of all things undiscovered in the world of C-Store scams, this may very well be one of the most disturbing. We only pumped $25 worth of fuel, $7 less than the clerk had allocated inside. We went to inform her of our original overpayment and sure enough, as promised, she gave us the difference back in cash.

JACKSON, MS - City Council Revisiting Fuel Theft - Monday, January 19, 2009

by Adam Lynch
Jan. 5, 2009

The Jackson City Council will meet today for an update on the city’s continuing problem with alleged fuel theft. In early December, council members voiced concern that more than 80 percent of city employees with city–paid gas cards were not properly tracking odometer readings, and could be abusing the card and stealing from the city. The council gave four recommendations to the city at a Dec. 1, 2008, meeting, and will revisit the issue at 2:30 p.m. today.

Ward 1 Councilman Jeff Weill, who first broached the topic in December, has already confirmed that the city is not following three of the council’s four recommendations on dealing with the issue.

The city has reportedly ignored the council’s first recommendation to reduce the number of employees with card access. Employee access to fuel cards actually went up by 45 individuals since the Dec. 1 hearing addressing the matter.

“From July 9 to Oct. 7 there were 1,088 employees with card access. From Oct. 8 to Dec. 31 there are 1,146,” Weill pointed out.

The second recommendation—that the city prohibit manual key-ins—has been so minimal as to be nonexistent, dropping from 3,543 manual key-ins to 2,957. Manual key-ins do not require the city employee present the city gas card, or even the buyer’s photo ID. Some council members feared that city employees could be handing off manual key-in numbers to friends, relatives—even buyers—for misuse on the city’s dime.

Council members report that the second, most recent figure for manual key-ins is based on a period one week shorter than the period producing the first number. The smaller interval suggests that city employees would have achieved something closer to the 3,543 figure if they had another week to reach it.

The council had also made a third recommendation that the city actively restrict employees to fewer fuel locations, since manual key-ins were happening as far away as the towns of Liberty and Brookhaven. Since the December recommendations, the city has reduced the number of available fuel stops from 168 to 166, essentially no change at all, according to Weill.

The council’s fourth recommendation, that the city take “vigorous administrative action on card abuse,” has yet to be discovered because the council has no data on administrative reprimands. Weill, in particular, wants to know what the administration has done to investigate incidence of alleged misuse.

“We want to know what they’ve done since December. Did you ask questions, did you write people up, did you prosecute them? Those are the answers that we just don’t know, but we hope to discover,” Weill said.

Council members pointed out in December that the city spent $4.6 million in fiscal year 2008 on fuel—including police patrol vehicles, which amounts to almost $90,000 a week—but used very little accountability for those expenditures.

Thief Steals $23,000 Over A Weekend Pay At The Pump Scheme - Friday, January 16, 2009

October 10, 2008 - RALEIGH, NC - Police say Dillard Roe Johnson stole gas cards from the Bass Nixon & Kennedy engineering company over the weekend, and then hung around gas stations offering motorists fill-ups for $20 a pop. Now police are trying to track down everyone who took advantage of the special offer — possibly hundreds of people.

Company president Ed Davenport said Johnson, who admitted to stealing the cards, set up an illicit gas business at Triangle gas stations. “By Monday morning, $23,000 worth of gas had been charged on the cards,” he said.

Scott Wilson, the firm’s survey manager, said the cards were used more than 300 times at more than two dozen gas stations in Raleigh, Smithfield, Morrisville, Wake Forest and Youngsville. Gas purchases ranged from $5 to $400, with most falling between $50 and $100.

“He would stay at some stations for more than an hour, moving from pump to pump,” Wilson said.

Bass, Nixon & Kennedy officials learned of the break-ins Sunday morning. Wilson said they were not too concerned because the thieves did not have the cards’ activation numbers. Wilson said he isn’t sure how someone gained the cards’ numbers, though at some stores an activation number isn’t needed to purchase gas at the pumps.

JACKSON, MS – (As initially reported by several news sources, including Marsha Thompson of WLBT) 

Jackson Mississippi, like many other municipalities nationwide, are starting to learn the nature of people in hard times.  An audit has revealed there could be widespread abuse of taxpayer’s dollars by Jackson workers who have access to FuelMan credit cards and pin numbers. The city is under the scrutiny of state and federal investigators for questionable use of FuelMan gas cards.

Here's the scope of the problem: 1088 city employees are issued the gas cards to gas up city vehicles. The audit indicates out of control spending by 945 Jackson workers who may have misused those cards. Apparently there were 9288 times of questionable use during the 3-month audit. City officials say that indicates 86-percent of workers with FuelMan cards may have used them inappropriately.

We have learned each department has a person responsible for tracking detailed reports. Reportedly, those FuelMan bills were not monitored, resulting in what some say, is a total breakdown of accountability. "Who's minding the store? Obviously no one is minding the store and that was the point several members tried to make today," said Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon. "When you have this many transactions in question, it's time for someone to be looking closely," said Councilman Leslie McLemore. "I think the abuse clearly is city wide." And Councilman Marshand Crisler said he believes city workers are stealing gas. "Yes, I think the system is flawed. Just almost makes it inevitable somebody is going to take advantage of it. Clearly the oversight is not there."

If the card is used incorrectly, something called an exception code is generated. It could be as simple as the wrong pin number entered or odometer reading. City officials say the numbers don't add up. But the Chief Administrative Officer and public works director say they are on top of the problem.

There are several issues here that will not happen with Automated Fuels' system.  Call us today, 800-288-6383, or email Craig@spencebanks.com