Wheels Blog: What Are We Doing About Fuel Card Fraud

By Natasha Gonsky, Manager, Fuel Management

In the last few months the fleet industry has seen a recent spike in fuel card fraud. Scammers are installing sophisticated skimming devices on the fuel pumps to make illegal purchases. I recently attended a fuel industry conference where suppliers, fleet management representatives and other stakeholders gathered to share our observations and best practices. Not surprisingly, fuel card fraud was a hot topic, and many conversations centered around how to prevent these types of fraudulent transactions.

Fuel card issuers are dedicated to enhancing the security of their cards, but they can only go so far to identify and prevent fraud. Many fleet managers today are leveraging their fleet management partners’ fuel programs to help detect fraud earlier and take quicker action to prevent it.

With insights gained from clients’ fleet data, FMCs like Wheels are in a better position to quickly identify fraudulent transactions, and uncover trends and “hidden” fraud perpetrated by employees, merchants and 3rd parties. Once fraud is detected, FMCs can take immediate actions on our clients’ behalf to block compromised cards and begin the process to recover any losses.

At Wheels, we work closely with our suppliers to make sure that clients are reimbursed fully for fraudulent charges if detected. But we also work closely with clients to detect and prevent fraud from happening in the first place.

Fraud Detection
Wheels fuel program takes a holistic approach to security by looking at fuel transactions as well as vehicle and driver data, both daily and over time. Combining these “three layers of protection” gives clients a complete picture of their fuel card activity, and helps identify trends that may be potential fraud.

Fuel velocity reports – every day we receive and analyze fuel velocity reports which include robust level 3 data. This data is merged with Wheels vehicle and driver data such as tank capacity, vehicle status and purchaser to immediately identify potential fraud.

MPG reports – these reports identify vehicles with low miles per gallon. By looking at the data over three or more months and combining this information with the velocity reports, we can flag potential cases where a card is being used to make excess fuel purchases over time.

Alerts – these help provide visibility to abnormal activity on specific fuel cards by quickly identifying transactions that exceed a pre-set threshold. Exceptions include: high-dollar, high gallons or multiple transactions in a day.

Fraud Prevention

Wheels proactively works with clients and suppliers to implement limits that can be adjusted as needed based on vehicle type, usage and other factors. We strongly recommend that clients implement Actual Dollar amount limits where available to lock out the card after a pre-set dollar limit is reached, rather than pre-authorization limits that do not give a true picture of what was being spent. This way, when unusually frequent or large purchases are made, cards can be quickly de-activated to prevent future instances of fraud.

We also monitor fuel activity and take proactive steps to protect our clients if fraud is suspected.

Every day we:

Report suspicious activity to the Account Executive and/or fleet office
Suspend processing of any doubtful transactions
Cancel the card if we suspect fraud
Warn clients of trends spotted and scams
Research and resolve suspicious transactions

Wheels takes every measure available to prevent fraud from happening. But when fraud happens we need client’s cooperation to identify fraudsters and take quick action. When clients participate in the process by providing necessary information quickly, cooperating with authorities and when necessary taking legal action against fraudsters, we all win!

The post Wheels Blog: What Are We Doing About Fuel Card Fraud appeared first on Fleet Management Weekly.

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