Posted on Oct 28, 2015
Is it unethical to use a personal rewards (gas) card, when filling up a government vehicle?
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Soldiers are told to use the NCOs personal rewards card, when filling up a government vehicle.
NCO Creed
Motor Sergeant
Ethics
Posted 10 y ago
Responses: 17
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"I will not use my grade or position, to attain pleasure, profit or personal safety" "I will always place their needs above my own"
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It would depend on the card. If it's a personal rewards credit card then yeah I would call that unethical. But if you are using a government credit card or fleet card and swipe your own rewards card, I dont think that's wrong. I use a company credit card to fly back and forth to work but I collect the frequent flier miles. Same with hotel points. When I book flights, purchase fuel or book hotel rooms, my choices are based on prices or availability. Most of the time my company gets a better deal when I use my cards.
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Hold the phone - I want to understand the facts because my initial response might have been off the mark. Ok, NCO orders/directs Soldiers to use his personal rewards card to fill up Gov't vehicle. Now, who's paying the fuel bill? That's my first question. If the NCO is paying the fuel bill, then you have an ADA (Anti Deficiency Act) violation. If the gov't is paying the fuel bill, then what you have is unethical, possibly illegal action on the NCO's part, compounded by the Soldiers' complicity. Now, I'm no lawyer (nor did I stay at Holiday Inn last night), but this situation should be referred up the CoC or IG before it blooms out of control
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SFC (Join to see) For clarification are you talking about using the NCO's rewards credit card as payment or a separate reward card that is swiped before making payment?
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SSG Brian Lovins
Not only unethical but probably illegal and what kind of sense does it make to pay 30 bucks for gas when you don't have to to earn what a buck in points. Is he getting reimbursed for this? Is there a reason he is not using the fleet card? I would write up a 4856 to CYA since you know it is happening, I probably bring it up to my 1SG and let them decide. Last time we used a GSA the driver lost one fuel receipt, you would have thought he lost his weapon at the amount of headache that caused me and the supply NCO and it rolled down from way above my company level. I am not sure if there is a requirement to turn in receipts but it was our States policy.
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1SG Charles Hunter
SSG Brian Lovins - Of course you must turn in receipts. How else does the responsible official verify valid expenses?
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SSG Brian Lovins
1SG Charles Hunter - I am talking solely about fuel receipts when using a GSA fleet card, most major civilian corporations do not require fuel receipts when the fleet card is used because it is all tracked electronically from the moment you swipe the card, enter vehicle mileage and the pin number, the card is usually assigned to the vehicle so there is nothing to validate. On the rare occasions we have to fill up another vehicle using our vehicles card we turn the receipt in to cover our butts but they are still not required as long as it was previously approved by management. Obviously if you have traveled 20 miles since last fill up and now put in 100 dollars of gas that is going to raise a red flag immediately, regardless if you have a receipt, for us it results in an email being sent out within minutes of completing the transaction to management. Now if this was a government travel card and NOT a GSA fleet card then yes I can see the need for receipts to justify and validate, but even the travel cards send out emails when one of your Soldiers uses it at Bass Pro Shops for a spongebob fishing pole and dvd, the issuing card agency knows what it can and con not be used for.
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When I worked at VA, I tried getting gas at Costco and it wouldn't accept the gov't fleet card.
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SFC (Join to see) I don't even get why you would use your personal money to fill a Gov. When we issue a vehicle we issue it full and you have a key to fill it up before turning it in at S4. If you are going further than 200 miles you need to fill a mileage permission and they will give you a TMP credit card to fill it up.
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SFC (Join to see)
This isn't about me. I've been in the miltiary 20+ years and I can assure you that I wouldn't even think of doing some frackle-knackle bs like that. A thought like this never even crossed my mind as a PFC...
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SGT(P) (Join to see)
SFC (Join to see) Oh no! I didn't mean you when I said "you". I meant it as anybody in the situation. Sorry if you got me wrong, I have less and less English every time 1700 gets closer.
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