It works like this: I need office supplies...like printer ink. I call CDW (that's who supplied our printer). I buy ink and put it on my GPC. I GET A BILL!!! the next month. I go into the Bank of America's site and reconsile my account...approve it...approve the bill (approve=all the stuff on the bill is stuff I bought). I send the approved bill to my RA...he looks it over and approves it as legit. Then he sends it to the comptroller who controls the $$$ and she approves it. When ever I hear about GPC abuse...I blame the RA's and the comptrollers (and the crook who is doing it) because if those guys were doing their job...they would catch it.
I also don't see how some of these people can spend that kind of money. My GPC has a single purchase limit and I cannot go over that daily limit...the card won't let me. I also can't split a purchase (buy $2000 in chairs one day...then $2000 in chairs the next. That is considered one purchase and 2000+2000=4000 which is over my single purchase limit.
The card is abused...I don't argue that. However, the losses in abuse are probably more than made up by the savings. Let me explain. If I need a desk...I used to HAVE to purchase from JWOD/Nibnish. That desk would probably cost me $1200. However, now I can use my GPC and buy one from Office Depot for $300. Last year I needed 3 new desks. I compaired the JWOD desk and one from office depot. They were EXACTLY the same. If I would have had to purchase it from JWOD...I would have spent $3600. However, as it was, I spent $900. I saved the tax payer $2700 that day. Desks aren't the only thing...all of the stuff from the government supply catalogs are WAY overpriced. I probably save the tax payer $3000 a year by having the GPC and not having to "buy" it from the government.
Just wanted to give my experience with the GPC.
That's exactly right. At Hill AFB, Utah last year, a civilian Air Force employee was fired and prosecuted for credit card fraud. He used his govt. credit card to obtain a $4000 cash advance and spent it gambling in Wendover, Nevada. He tried to claim that the card was stolen and the cash was obtained before he knew the card was taken and could cancel it. The moron got caught in his lies because he forgot that casinos are wired for video and sound like you can't believe.
In this case, the system worked. The financial folks spotted his fraud, notified the proper authorities, and this guy is now in jail on a felony grand larceny rap and will pay restitution when he gets out. Too bad the financial people at other bases are too lazy to look at what goes on or just look the other way when they see evidence of fraud. Pretty sad. And civil servants can't figure out why they have a bad reputation.
I am a retired broadcaster. Some years ago I did a follow up on a high priced part used in a tank. The replacment part was a wrench used to change and repair tanks in the field.
The Defense Department had paid 500 dollars each an ordinary wrench you could by for 20 bucks at Sears. When I checked it out it seems the congress had seen some shoddy stuff sold to the department by a defense contractors as substitutes for the orginal suplies. So they made a rule that all the stuff had to be exactly like original equipemt. No substitutions. It seems the company that made the model wrench originally supplied, no longer made that model. So they hand made some formre 20 dollar wrenches. But the labor on hand made wrenched came in at 500 dollars apiece.
It is the same way in big business too. Many years ago i ran second shift quality control at a GM plant. We were using some special graduated glassware for chemical tests. Glass when heated and cooled gets brittle and breaks after awhile. So about once a month one of the graduates would break. They cost about $150 each. The company that made them told me the big cost was set up. Instead of buying one a month at 150 dollars they would sell us a dozen for 200 dollars. That would save $1600 dollars a year. So I bought a dozen.
I was called in on the carpet because the GM president was impressed with with a new concept called just in time inventory. So he decreed you could not have more than 30 days worth of anything instock. WE had a years supply of graduates.
To keep from having 11 extra graduates show up on the inventory, my boss had me break 11 of the graduates and we went back to spending 150 dollars a month buying them one at a time.