Fraud Prevention

Fuel Express understands how fraud threatens your bottom line. Our fuel card accounts include strong security features that build barriers between your budget and thieves. Our fleet fuel card fraud prevention system stops unauthorized transactions, alerts you to suspicious activity, and shuts down stolen cards. With Fuel Express handling your fleet transactions, you can place fleet fuel cards in your drivers’ hands with confidence.

Multiple Layers of Defense

Narrow margins and fluctuating fuel prices already strain your fleet’s budget. Theft can land a heavy blow, but Fuel Express defends you with a strong fraud prevention arsenal. Fuel pump prompts, spending limits, swipe limits and regional restrictions combined with our responsive customer service protects your business 24 hours a day.

Exception Monitoring

Our many budget control tools include exception monitoring, which further enhances fleet fuel card fraud prevention. Choose the exceptions that you want to watch out for and receive alerts about strange activity. Fuel spending should be fairly consistent across your routes. Alerts about altered spending patterns or spikes in spending serve as an early warning detection system.

Fuel Express Fleet Fuel Card Prevention Features

The location, purpose, and size of your fleet influence your security needs. Fraud can arise from many types of internal or external attacks. Fuel Express grants you the flexibility to choose your fleet fuel card fraud prevention priorities. Select and customize the account security features that work best for your fleet. Most options have the power to halt fraudulent purchases. Some warn you when you need to take a closer look.

Daily Dollar Limits

You already have a good idea how much should be spent on fuel for each route. Apply that knowledge to the budget for each route, driver, or vehicle with appropriate daily spending limits.

Daily Swipe Limits

Stop a thief quickly with daily swipe limits. Legitimate purchases by your employees should only occur so many times a day. Use this option to reject anything beyond normal swipe activity.

Regional Blocking

Thieves often try to use stolen card accounts outside of your fleet’s region. The majority of fraud problems happen in Florida, Texas, and California. Block these states entirely if your drivers never enter them. Alternatively, you can block out the rest of the country if your fleet only operates in one state. Our fleet fuel card fraud prevention allows you to deny all transactions outside your area of operation. Customize this feature as needed for each fleet fuel card.

Fuel Pump Prompts

Requiring inputs at the fuel pump gathers useful fleet management data and undermines thieves. Prompts will spoil attempts to buy fuel with stolen cards. Even if an employee tries to work around the prompts, the information gathered will still show that something is not right. Pump input options include:

• Odometer reading
• Odometer reading & Route ID
• Odometer reading & Employee ID
• Odometer reading & Vehicle ID

Most Common Types of Fuel Card Fraud

Comprehensive fleet fuel card fraud prevention from Fuel Express addresses the many ways that theft can occur. Real-time data collection enabled by our fuel cards allows you to track spending by individual drivers. Precise details about every transaction empower you to detect internal fraud. Fortunately, most of your drivers will be honest people with no desire to steal. Even so, their daily activities could expose them to external threats.

Fuel card fraud can happen when:

• Hidden skimming devices collect card numbers at corrupted pump card readers.
• Someone records card numbers in ways other than using a skimmer.
• Employee or outside party siphons fuel out of a company vehicle’s tank.
• Employee buys food or other items unrelated to work.
• Employee fuels a personal vehicle.
• Employee fills a fuel container for personal use while fueling a company vehicle.
• Employee makes errors during a transaction and fails to detect inaccurate charges.
• Employee shops with a fuel card when not on duty.

How to Identify Skimmers

Skimming describes the theft of credit card numbers and PINs via fraudulent card readers attached to fuel pumps. The illegitimate reader will look like a card reader and collect data when a driver swipes their fleet fuel card. The thief then downloads the information and uses it to make purchases. Your drivers can support fleet fuel card fraud prevention by keeping an eye open for corrupted card readers.

Train your drivers to inspect readers before swiping. Any signs of tampering, like a broken sticker seal around the reader, should warn a driver to choose another pump, or better yet a different gas station altogether. An ill-fitting or broken reader could indicate an illegal card skimmer. Thieves typically target pumps far from a cashier’s range of visibility. Drivers should use pumps close to the station in high visibility areas whenever possible.

How to Prevent Fleet Fuel Card Fraud

Effective fleet fuel card fraud prevention requires the vigilance of drivers, fleet managers and Fuel Express. We’ve applied our industry knowledge to create security features that safeguard your team and fuel budget. Combine the security tools with these recommended best practices to stop fraud:

• Keep cards secure – Do not leave fleet fuel cards visibly exposed or allow drivers to write their PIN or Driver ID on the cards.
• Store PIN separately from card – Fleet fuel card fraud prevention unravels if a thief can obtain both a card and its PIN.
• Never share PINs – Unauthorized parties should not have access to fleet fuel cards. Drivers should not share fuel cards with each other either.
• Watch cashiers closely – Skimming can also occur with handheld devices. Train your drivers to monitor cards whenever others touch them.
• Never use suspicious pumps – Compromised pump equipment could contain a skimmer. Do not use the pump and report it to station staff.
• Immediately report missing cards – Quick reporting is essential for fleet fuel card fraud prevention. Fuel Express will shut down a card as soon as you inform us that it is lost or stolen.
• Report strange transactions – Encourage your drivers to inform the fleet manager about any transactions that appear wrong or questionable.
• Have a formal fuel card policy – Help drivers avoid purchase mistakes by training them on your official fleet fuel card use policies. Make clear what the consequences will be for fuel card misuse and fraud. They should understand the terms and sign an acknowledgment of the training.
• Monitor card accounts daily – Check spending as often as possible so that you can detect unauthorized uses quickly. Thieves can exhaust a card’s credit limit within minutes. Frequent account monitoring strongly supplements fleet fuel card fraud prevention efforts by Fuel Express.
• Follow your transaction rules – Inconvenient transaction denials might frustrate you and drivers, but your rules serve a purpose. Resist the temptation to undo restrictions meant to prevent fraud.
• Know what normal looks like – Fuel usage and spending should be largely consistent for each route. Most drivers also tend to use the same fueling locations. When you spot sudden changes in activity, contact your drivers immediately.
• Use fuel pump prompts – Fuel pump prompts might prevent a thief from completing a transaction. Prompts work best when you require two variables, especially Driver ID.
• Encourage pay-at-the-pump transactions – Drivers might make unauthorized purchases if they enter a store to pay for fuel. Keeping them at the pump limits the temptation to buy other things.
• Set daily budgets – The budget control options provided by Fuel Express cards improve fleet fuel card fraud prevention. A hard ceiling on daily spending geared only toward fuel limits the possibility of other purchases.
• Monitor fueling frequency – Excessive fueling stops unjustified by a route’s distance present a red flag to potentially unauthorized activity.
• Watch for MPG discrepancies – A mismatch between fuel purchases and a vehicle’s expected MPG could indicate fraud.
• Match driver logs to fuel receipts – Look for purchases that do not match driving activity.

Get Our Fuel Card Today

Fuel Express cards include fleet fuel card fraud prevention features not available from regular credit card accounts. Daily limits, fuel pump prompts and regional blocking provide you with robust resources for protecting your budget. Fraud is a fact that fleet managers have to deal with. Join forces with Fuel Express to benefit from our industry-leading security features. Contact us for more information or get the fleet fuel card today.