Evening meal allowance - London

[Greshamst]

I’m currently developing an internal fraud programme at my company, which includes travel and expense fraud, so have been creating some reports to flag potential expense abuse and see if there’s anything of concern.
It’s quite eye opening.

Room service champagne
Hotel bar cigars
Council tax
Drinks at a strip club
Weekend taxis at 3am
12 pack of beer for the train up to Manchester

I’m also hiring an internal fraud role, and interviewed a guy that did review internal fraud for public sector.
The travel policy for HMRC was something like £12 for dinner.
We get £100 a day for food and drink :/

[Countdown]

One of the best defences against expenses fraud is to have an expenses team of bitter vindictive old women who never travel anywhere

[h0b0]

Countdown said:

One of the best defences against expenses fraud is to have an expenses team of bitter vindictive old women who never travel anywhere

At a former employer the worst bitter old lady in expenses was arrested in the office for stealing all the AMEX points.

[Blown2CV]

i used to travel all over for work, and i was working with a large bank in London. Normally I'd have to pay for hotel and food etc but on this occasion they said do i want to stay in one of their managed apartments for free. I said mega, thanks. It was a lovely place, fully stocked cupboards so no need to claim anything, I thought. Then I saw there was nothing to wash my hands with as they'd run out. No issue I thought, I will pop over to the supermarket over the road and buy a bar of soap. As part of a wider trip I chucked that £1 bar of soap in to expenses, and it was rejected by one of the said embittered middle aged women! So what would have been the cost of a night in a london hotel plus subsistence etc turned into a quid and she said no.

[Countdown]

Blown2CV said:

i used to travel all over for work, and i was working with a large bank in London. Normally I'd have to pay for hotel and food etc but on this occasion they said do i want to stay in one of their managed apartments for free. I said mega, thanks. It was a lovely place, fully stocked cupboards so no need to claim anything, I thought. Then I saw there was nothing to wash my hands with as they'd run out. No issue I thought, I will pop over to the supermarket over the road and buy a bar of soap. As part of a wider trip I chucked that £1 bar of soap in to expenses, and it was rejected by one of the said embittered middle aged women! So what would have been the cost of a night in a london hotel plus subsistence etc turned into a quid and she said no.

We don't allow any personal grooming products (toothpaste, facewash, makeup, hair dye/gel, shaving cream, razors). If you need it you buy it and pay for it.

[Countdown]

h0b0 said:

At a former employer the worst bitter old lady in expenses was arrested in the office for stealing all the AMEX points.

Don't they normally go to the cardholder? We let staff keep any loyalty points they accrue (nectar, clubcard, etc) .

[h0b0]

Countdown said:

h0b0 said:

At a former employer the worst bitter old lady in expenses was arrested in the office for stealing all the AMEX points.

Don't they normally go to the cardholder? We let staff keep any loyalty points they accrue (nectar, clubcard, etc) .

This was back in 2004 so things have changed. I do not remember all the details. But, back then I think you had to pay $20 to collect points from your corporate AMEX on your personal card.

Edited to add....

It was that any points being collected on a corp card that were not linked to a personal card were pooled. The company could then use these points for discounts or benefits. Somehow, the lady in expenses was spending the company points.


Today I see my corp card and personal card collecting together.

Edited by h0b0 on Wednesday 1st May 14:14

[Ken_Code]

Blown2CV said:

i used to travel all over for work, and i was working with a large bank in London. Normally I'd have to pay for hotel and food etc but on this occasion they said do i want to stay in one of their managed apartments for free. I said mega, thanks. It was a lovely place, fully stocked cupboards so no need to claim anything, I thought. Then I saw there was nothing to wash my hands with as they'd run out. No issue I thought, I will pop over to the supermarket over the road and buy a bar of soap. As part of a wider trip I chucked that £1 bar of soap in to expenses, and it was rejected by one of the said embittered middle aged women! So what would have been the cost of a night in a london hotel plus subsistence etc turned into a quid and she said no.

Charging for a bar of soap is ludicrous. If one of my staff at the bank did that I’d think that they were trying to make some sort of point.

Your ageism and sexism perhaps explains why they decided not to play along with such a ridiculous claim.

[borcy]

Countdown said:

Don't they normally go to the cardholder? We let staff keep any loyalty points they accrue (nectar, clubcard, etc) .

Our place doesn't no points allowed for anything. Removes any temptation to go for xyz because you get points.

[Blown2CV]

Countdown said:

Blown2CV said:

i used to travel all over for work, and i was working with a large bank in London. Normally I'd have to pay for hotel and food etc but on this occasion they said do i want to stay in one of their managed apartments for free. I said mega, thanks. It was a lovely place, fully stocked cupboards so no need to claim anything, I thought. Then I saw there was nothing to wash my hands with as they'd run out. No issue I thought, I will pop over to the supermarket over the road and buy a bar of soap. As part of a wider trip I chucked that £1 bar of soap in to expenses, and it was rejected by one of the said embittered middle aged women! So what would have been the cost of a night in a london hotel plus subsistence etc turned into a quid and she said no.

We don't allow any personal grooming products (toothpaste, facewash, makeup, hair dye/gel, shaving cream, razors). If you need it you buy it and pay for it.

there is also a thing called judgement i guess.

[Ken_Code]

Blown2CV said:

there is also a thing called judgement i guess.

Something that you seem to lack.

[Blown2CV]

Ken_Code said:

Blown2CV said:

there is also a thing called judgement i guess.

Something that you seem to lack.

what's that meant to mean exactly?

[ATG]

Blown2CV said:

Ken_Code said:

Blown2CV said:

there is also a thing called judgement i guess.

Something that you seem to lack.

what's that meant to mean exactly?

I think it means someone is over-tired and crosspatch.

[Countdown]

h0b0 said:

This was back in 2004 so things have changed. I do not remember all the details. But, back then I think you had to pay $20 to collect points from your corporate AMEX on your personal card.

Edited to add....

It was that any points being collected on a corp card that were not linked to a personal card were pooled. The company could then use these points for discounts or benefits. Somehow, the lady in expenses was spending the company points.


Today I see my corp card and personal card collecting together.

Edited by h0b0 on Wednesday 1st May 14:14

I think, instead of points, our Corporate Credit card gives us a 0.5% cashback (which goes into the company's account). However if somebody derived an incidental benefit then we wouldn't insist they pay it back to the company.

For example our IT team use their CC for amazon purchases and they have Prime for next day delivery, which means they probably get free TV. i

[Countdown]

Blown2CV said:

Countdown said:

Blown2CV said:

i used to travel all over for work, and i was working with a large bank in London. Normally I'd have to pay for hotel and food etc but on this occasion they said do i want to stay in one of their managed apartments for free. I said mega, thanks. It was a lovely place, fully stocked cupboards so no need to claim anything, I thought. Then I saw there was nothing to wash my hands with as they'd run out. No issue I thought, I will pop over to the supermarket over the road and buy a bar of soap. As part of a wider trip I chucked that £1 bar of soap in to expenses, and it was rejected by one of the said embittered middle aged women! So what would have been the cost of a night in a london hotel plus subsistence etc turned into a quid and she said no.

We don't allow any personal grooming products (toothpaste, facewash, makeup, hair dye/gel, shaving cream, razors). If you need it you buy it and pay for it.

there is also a thing called judgement i guess.

There's also human nature, and having to attend HR disciplinaries (and even on one occasion an Employment Tribunal) where you get asked about how clear your policies are. I've had people booking "business meetings" where their partners have accompanied them with the costs being charged to the Company CC. It makes you wonder whether the meeting was essential or just a way to get 50% (or 100%) of a holiday paid for by the company.

Where a Policy isn't absolutely clear some people will always play the faux-naif card.

[h0b0]

Countdown said:

h0b0 said:

This was back in 2004 so things have changed. I do not remember all the details. But, back then I think you had to pay $20 to collect points from your corporate AMEX on your personal card.

Edited to add....

It was that any points being collected on a corp card that were not linked to a personal card were pooled. The company could then use these points for discounts or benefits. Somehow, the lady in expenses was spending the company points.


Today I see my corp card and personal card collecting together.

Edited by h0b0 on Wednesday 1st May 14:14

I think, instead of points, our Corporate Credit card gives us a 0.5% cashback (which goes into the company's account). However if somebody derived an incidental benefit then we wouldn't insist they pay it back to the company.

For example our IT team use their CC for amazon purchases and they have Prime for next day delivery, which means they probably get free TV. i

This got to tens of thousands of dollars. She was responsible for 5000 employee expenses. Many had $25/day lunch allowance even when they worked from home.

I can't find the news article from the time because another person did a much bigger fraud and his case dominates the historical news articles. This guy became the company's biggest competitor for spare parts by redirecting parts returned from our field engineers to himself and writing them all off. He then sold them on ebay.

[Ken_Code]

ATG said:

I think it means someone is over-tired and crosspatch.

It means that someone trying to claim for a £1 bar of siap and clearly still fuming over it months later oughtn’t to suggest that others have poor judgement.

[Blown2CV]

Ken_Code said:

ATG said:

I think it means someone is over-tired and crosspatch.

It means that someone trying to claim for a £1 bar of siap and clearly still fuming over it months later oughtn’t to suggest that others have poor judgement.

hardly fuming, i was posting it because i thought it was funny. Anyway it was 20 years ago.

All the best hope you feel better soon.

[RayDonovan]

We're allowed to keep Hilton Honors points. Had 1 million until very recently..

[Tango13]

h0b0 said:

Countdown said:

One of the best defences against expenses fraud is to have an expenses team of bitter vindictive old women who never travel anywhere

At a former employer the worst bitter old lady in expenses was arrested in the office for stealing all the AMEX points.

I worked at one place that sent a lot of stuff via DHL so the office manager set up a company Nectar card and linked it to the DHL account.

Something like £250 worth of points in the first six months!