Posted on 03/27/2014 7:19:34 AM PDT by Cheerio
Postal employees have spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on gambling, bills and other personal expenses, according to a series of reports by the U.S. Postal Service inspector general.
Federal employees may use government credit cards for official travel expenses, but some used theirs to withdraw cash before hitting casinos.
Nearly a dozen reports on closed travel card theft investigations were obtained by the Washington Examiner in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
I don't know about that. I do know that taking personal responsibility doesn't make news.
Geesh...I wonder why the USPS is going broke!
Tip of the iceberg I betcha!
Must be the upper management getting these perks. Here in our little community, we know all of our mail carriers. They are all conservative and all hard working.
For three years....I had to do monthly internal audits within a gov’t agency over their visa cards. It’s the easiest job possible to do audits over....everything comes to you at the conclusion of a monthly cycle and you start to compare against the authorizations list and how they were used. You can knock out a hundred transactions in about two hours. If people are that stupid over misuse....you can identify it, cite evidence, and trigger immediate disciplinary action, including firing them. You’d have to be an absolute idiot to carry the card and abuse it.
It is not the carriers, it is the high position holders, that are responsible. If memory serves correct and a google search should bring it up the Big Wigs were moving just blocks away and it was costing us MILLIONS just a year or so ago.
Nothing new, run along, you didn’t read this.
My step daughter is a carrier, she has NO gov’t issued credit card.
This on goes on the bosses, not the carriers!
Did they arrest the perps, seize their assets and put them in jail? Probably, they were given bonuses, promoted and given time off. This a government replete with criminals and thugs.
Not only is the Post Office ripping us off through misuse of the credit cards, they are overpaying staff.
Check out what the post office pays custodians. In most cities (large or small) it is more than $50,000 per year.
Custodial work is usually a $20,000 or less paying job.
When I worked for the Postal Service at the JFK airport mail facility we had a supervisor that used his government charge card to pay for his wedding!
You're probably right.
I am required to provide both an Itemized list of expendatures along with a reciept of the transaction every month when the Card Statement arrives. I am then required to fill out a Purchase Order request and charge each transaction to it’s proper internal account...ie, travel, equipment, maintenence and repair. This is for a Organization that has a 20 Million Dollar a year Budget.
It’s stories like this that make me laugh when the discussion turns to NeroCare and how the Government is going to handle everyone’s health care.
As a former federal manager I gave quite a few employees days on the beach for for misuse of travel cards.
What this article fails to mention is that the travel cards are in the name of the employee. The employee is fully responsible for all charges be they authorized or unauthorized.
Failure to timely pay your bill will result in disciplinary action up to removal. The employee takes the credit hit on their record and is still responsible for the debt even if separated from employment. If the employee has completed their travel voucher and not been reimbursed from the GOV they still have to pay or the debt goes to collections.
I hated the stupid cards and would much rather have used my own card so I would get the points. However use of the card is mandatory for all official travel.
What I want to know is what is the government doing with all the points they rack up every year. Great way to fund projects off budget or line someones pocket.
STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE!!!!
Travel Cards are used by employees and are the responsibility of the employee to pay the bill (monthly billing cycle). There is no approval process in the use, but the bill must be paid monthly by the cardholder. Misuse is easily found if an employee doesn't pay the bill, as the agency is notified immediately.
Also, for travel cards, they will negatively affect your credit if you fail to pay.
The way an employee is re-paid for travel card use is for employees to file a travel voucher for supervisory approval. Generally a voucher can't be filed/approved wihout first having had the authorization to travel. They are most often used for temporary duty travel, but, if you are moving on behalf of your agency, can be used during a change of station move, as well, but it is not that common.
I've audited both types of cards/systems in the past. Travel is far easier to deal with regarding fraud/waste/abuse when the person actually goes through the system. If you pay your bill every month, and don't file any travel vouchers, the agency may never now you used it. However, I think things have changed recently, as many agencies get reports on activity from the card issuer, to match against reported voucher activity.
Purchase cards are harder, only in the fact that there are usually far more transactions on them than travel cards, and you have to request far more data to ensure the purchases were legitimate. But, as has already meen mentioned, once you have the information, you can knock out the review pretty quickly.
I worked for a private company where I had my own credit card to use for business functions. At the end of every month I sat down in front of a computer and pulled up software where I had to code every charge to match the receipts, print it out and then interoffice everything to accounting. I am sure they then checked it as well.
I wont put any letters in my home mailbox for the postman to pick up if there is personal info, credit card payments, etc....... would like to trust them but cant be sure these days. So I throw the letters at the nearby post office pickup box as a safer bet.
And last month they “lost” a $100 Amazon order of auto parts (FedEx del. to local PO) , placed me on hold for over an hour without answering, when i did get thru they said it went to a city nearby, but never got here. Got thru a few days later and they tracked it came to my city, not the one nearby, but do not know why it never got delivered.
Said to contact Consumer Affairs, which i sent email to with order #, but they never got back to me.
Called national help, which gave me a case number and said they would contact me in 24hrs, but never did.
Plus i ordered forever stamps, 2-3 day priority mail it says, but took 2 weeks.
And i am just outside the capital of my state.
Look for the union label.
Why are low level government workers given credit cards?
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