With high fuel prices, fuel theft due to driver misuse, can be a major threat to your company’s bottom line. As fuel prices seemingly rise every year, we know that fuel is perhaps a fleet’s greatest cost. Unfortunately, none of us can individually control fuel prices unless you have a magic genie of some sort. The point is, as a fleet manager you can only control what is in your control and with fleet cards, you get the preventative tools to help you control and minimize potential theft due to driver misuse. Here are some tips on how you can control theft.
Set fleet card transaction limits
For example our fleet cards’ default transaction limit per day is set at three transactions. In case your card is lost or stolen, someone who tries to use the card only has three tries at entering the driver number and pin before the card shuts off. This will buy you time to cancel the card so no money is lost.Here are some transaction limits available for you:
- Daily, weekly, and/or monthly dollar limits
- Require an odometer entry- this is often the best way of spotting misuse
Limit purchase time frames
If your drivers only work from 9-5 Monday through Friday, setup your fleet card so they can only purchase fuel between those times so that your drivers aren’t tempted to use their fleet card for personal travel after work hours.
Check your fleet card account regularly
Make sure that all your transactions are going to your business purposes. If you see random transactions or transactions that exceed the gallon capacity of a vehicles tank or fuel type you will know that someone is stealing from you. Here are some tips on how you can utilize your fleet account:
- Schedule and save valuable proactive reports
- Watch real time activity
- Check fuel economy by vehicle
- Search for cards with high gallons and high number of transactions
- Look into vehicle cost
