misplaced palettes of cash in Iraq

I got to talking with some Boy Scout adult leaders (we were doing some volunteer work together) about a year or so ago, and one of them told me an interesting tale.  His son-in-law was a captain in the Army, flying helicopters in Iraq.  His crew and two other helicopters were assigned to drop three pallets in the desert.  As they flew away, they saw pickup trucks come in out of the darkness to retrieve the pallets.

One of his men said he'd gotten a look at the cargo, and it was bales of money.

It's hearsay, but it's still pretty interesting.

These cards are issued to a set number of people who might need to to go out and purchase supplies or services with them.  They are supposed to be for authorized purchases only, of course.  But there is no real up front approval process the card holder needs to go through before they use the cards.  And, to merchants processing the purchase, they're just another piece of plastic used to pay for stuff -- there is nothing on the card, or in the system, which would preclude them being used as inappropriately as these were.  The key is supposed to be timely review and reconciliation by a government purchase card person.

Each government agency has to appoint someone or a group of someones responsible for scrutinizing the monthly totals for purchases as they get spit out by the government purchase card issuer (used to be Diners Club years ago -- I'm not sure who it is now).  The system works to correct abuses when the scrutinizer does his or her job.  However, there are any number of activities and agencies in the government where performing these duties is, shall we say, lax.  Usually, these things will end up being exposed, but you may have to wait for an audit or IG for that to happen and literally millions of dollars of unauthorized and inappropriate purchases could go undetected.  And then, of course, the beheadings and floggings ensue.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Seriously. The system here works like this: I buy everything up front on my credit card and eventually when some overpaid and underworked person in administration gets around to it I get my money back. Last year I had to rent a car for trip to a conference. The lady in charge of working with the car rental agencies told me to get certain types of those optional insurances but not others. Fine. So I get back, turn my receipts in and go pick up my check. A secretary tells me my payout was reduced by $70+ because I ordered "unauthorized insurance" and so I had to pay for it out of my own budget. This was after I voluntarily reduced my own per diem to come in under budget for the trip (we were going to a place authorized about $160 a day). I was NOT happy.

So why do government agencies allow so much waste to get through? My sister used to do auditing at an earlier job. Her department supposedly found some idiot booking a trip to see family in India on a company purchase card. Their solution? Fire him and probably go after him civilly for the money. Why can't the government get it together and do that? How about a policy of: if we catch you buying lingerie for your hot Latina with government funds you get a one way ticket to FPMITA Prison? I bet that would be a deterrent for all the people thinking of sending their boytoys six figure sums with balance transfer checks.

Also, port1080, when did you start using an online dating service? How's that working out for ya?

When I was in student government, one of my compatriots "misappropriated" over $15,000 in funds. I, as a fellow student, was the one who caught her--not any of the checks and balances in the profession finance department. One of the transgressions included altering a $360 rental invoice to read as a $3600 invoice. It was amazing to see just how easy it had been for this person to get away these acts--more then a year before I came on the job and did my job thoroughly enough to dig up everything.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

"How do they get away with this stuff?"

Good question.  When I was working at a hospital, and we had to travel, we had to put it on our personal credit card.  When we got back, we had to submit a detailed summary of charges and then get reimbursed.  No booze, no hookers, no anything besides food, room, and travel expenses allowed.  Might not have been the best system, and it sucked if you didn't have a good credit card with lots of money left on it (I knew people who fell into that category), but the company didn't lose a dime on any of us.

On the other hand, I also worked for a magazine in New York, and it's good to befriend the executive editor.  $250+ lunches on the company tab weren't uncommon.  It might also be partially responsible for why Ziff-Davis (parent company of PC Magazine) recently filed for bankruptcy

there's only one way to find out...