Can I have a Waverunner with that?

Public sector abuse of P-Cards continues to be rampant.  The Dallas Independent School District, Knox County TN, Wake County NC, and more recently in Georgia, as reported in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.   In this recent Georgia case, an administrator for Georgia Tech used her P-Card to make nearly 3,000 fraudulent purchases totaling more than $300,000.  

The Georgia Tech administrator, Donna Gamble, has pled guilty to 22 counts of mail fraud and theft, and will be sentenced later this month in Federal Court.  Among her unauthorized purchases with federal grant monies included a Waverunner personal watercraft and lawn tractors.

Public and private sector organizations are replacing expensive purchase orders and procurement processes with P-Cards, as the cost per transactions is very favorable.  Aberdeen Research shows that P-Card purchases often cost less than 1/3 the amount of more traditional purchase order and invoice purchases.  Yet these P-Card purchases introduce more risk, and all types of organizations are challenged by how to best control and monitor credit card spend.  

Supervisory review, transaction review by a central p-card administrator, and limiting card usage at certain merchants and merchant types are all controls that organizations use to ensure charges are authorized and in compliance with preferred vendor agreements.   But the news headlines suggest strongly that these controls are not sufficient.

Stay tuned in coming weeks as we look to chronicle other organizations that have implemented continuous controls monitoring for frequent, in-depth, and efficient transaction review.

Joe Oringel
Visual Risk IQ
Charlotte NC, USA