The fraudster
AN OIL AND GAS COMPANY BASED IN ITALY brings engineers from its office in Mozambique to its Milan headquarters for training. One engineer was staying in a serviced apartment facility in Milan for six months. They sublet the apartment on a lodging website 87 times in five months – and achieved 39 positive reviews as a result. Once the engineer’s fraudulent activity was uncovered, the company had to pay a fine of Ð15,000 for breaching the serviced apartment contract. The employee, on the other hand, made a lot of money on their 87 multi-night rentals at Ð150 per night.
MANAGING THE PROBLEM On this occasion, the company had to assume the cost of its employee’s fraudulent activity. The employee also got fired as a result. Travel managers are always advised to read the small print and make sure their employees are aware of the terms and conditions before they are sent abroad for work or training purposes. In this scenario, the employee was perfectly aware that he was breaking the law. In other cases, however, employees may not be aware of suppliers’ terms and conditions and, as a result, they might inadvertently cause liability costs for their employer. Multinational oil and gas company, travel buyer
It is always good for companies to carry out random audits on practices for both travellers and travel managers. What’s interesting here is that companies are liable for any fraudulent activity that their travellers carry out on a trip. The contract was drawn up between the company and the rental agency, not the individual, so the fine was for the company, not the employee. Despite the fact he lost his job, he didn’t have to pay a thing – the company did. Graham Kingsmill, managing director, Egencia UK
Super stressed in Sweden
ONE MEDIA COMPANY SENT A FILM CREW OUT TO SWEDEN – the schedule was extremely punishing. The hotels and flights were booked, as well as the ground transportation. Like all trips through this production company the travel arrangements are meticulous due to the expense of having a crew and their kit out on the road. Yet the trip was so stressful that the director went off policy and started spending company money on extra meals and checking in to other, more expensive hotels. She booked a boutique hotel as she said the accommodation they were staying in was inadequate – the team back at base knew full well it wasn’t. The stress of that shoot triggered the team not to comply with policy. The director had a corporate card and used it with a vengeance, and bypassed one travel manager and went to another manager to get authorisation for the extra expense.
MANAGING THE PROBLEM We did our best to check reviews, we empowered the travelling team with links as to where they
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were going to stay. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough. We always try to look at it from an execu- tive’s point of view. Certainly we would have had more choice in accommodation if we had booked sooner, and got better value. However, with TV shooting trips it’s not always that easy. Also, in the past, the company has had bigger budgets for travel – now, times are tougher yet expectations haven’t changed. We could have done more to educate the director here or manage the trip so that there was less stress. Media company, travel manager
Any significant inconvenience which triggers the traveller to say: “I’m a good corporate citizen normally but I’m stressed,” or, “this is my personal time now and I need to get home,” or, “I wouldn’t be doing this or that on a Saturday night normally so I am going to go off policy.” In these circumstances it becomes an easy and very natural excuse to be a rogue travel- ler. The trick is to ensure that everyone is set-up for this eventuality. Adam Knights, managing director, ATPI UK
BBT September/October 2016 51
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