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Jul
15
2016
Report Number:
FT-FM-16-001
Report Type:
Audit Reports
Category: Finance

Internal Controls Over Voyager Card Transactions - Fort Collins, CO, Main Post Office

Background

The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) uses data analytics, including predictive risk models and tripwires, to identify financial anomalies. Tripwires are analytic tools that look at specific behaviors and patterns that are strong indicators of improper activity. The Voyager credit card tripwire identified purchases exceeding the long life vehicle (LLV) tank capacity at the Fort Collins, CO, Main Post Office (MPO). These types of purchases are considered suspicious and could indicate ineffective internal controls or fraud.

Every U.S. Postal Service-owned vehicle is assigned a Voyager card and every driver receives a personal identification number (PIN). Drivers use the card to pay for fuel, oil, and routine vehicle maintenance. Site managers are responsible for verifying Voyager card transactions and all supporting documentation.

The objectives of this audit were to review the validity of the transactions that exceeded the LLV tank capacity and assess the internal controls over Voyager card transactions at the Fort Collins, CO, MPO.

What the OIG Found

The Voyager credit card tripwire identified 11 of 164 (7 percent) transactions made from December 9 to December 14, 2015, valued at $1,800 that exceeded the LLV tank capacity. The site manager stated the transactions were the result of an incident involving suspected theft of Voyager card information at several gas stations. The incident involved fuel purchases that were approved and appeared to be legitimately made by Postal Service drivers. The site manager began to dispute these transactions but did not timely submit all the documents to complete the process. Therefore, the Postal Service will not be entitled to credits. We referred the information to the OIG’s Office of Investigation (OI) for further review.

In addition, we determined controls over Voyager card transactions needed improvement. The site manager did not:

  • Conduct reconciliations timely. The site manager was a full-time carrier. He stated he did not have time at the end of his shift to conduct his ad hoc site manager duties.
  • Deactivate PINs for six carriers no longer working at the site. Two of the six PINs were used to make four fuel transactions valued at $81. We also referred this information to OI.
  • Properly secure the cards.

When internal controls are not in place and functioning as intended, management cannot effectively mitigate the risk of theft or misuse of the card.

As a result of this audit, the postmaster appointed a full-time site manager and secured the cards with a lock-and-key container. The site manager also deactivated the six inactive driver PINs.

What the OIG Recommended

We recommended management establish a process whereby the site manager follows Voyager card procedures and receives timely updates of personnel changes impacting the Voyager card program.