Fraud in business travel. It’s a thing.
Not surprising, since the risk for fraud is basically everywhere.
And it just keeps growing as people and businesses become increasingly digital.
(If you’ve never fallen victim to it, consider yourself lucky …and/or well prepared. According to data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Americans lost over $8.8 billion to fraud last year – 30% higher than 2021.)
But left unmitigated, the risk of fraud in business travel is even higher than the risk of fraud in some of the other areas of business or life.
Why?
Unprotected (or simply disorganized) travel programs, with all their many travelers, transactions, and systems (and higher-limit credit cards) make ideal targets for those with less-than-honest intentions.
Fraudsters. LOVE. Business. Travel.
These modern scammers use a wide range of techniques to convince all kinds of people that what they’re seeing, signing up for, buying into, etc. is legit. They’re also good at gaining access to improperly protected accounts and using their own fraudulently gained card numbers to make purchases under you or your traveler’s name.
And while no one likes to admit that anyone on their team would do it… there’s also always the risk of internal fraud from your own travelers.
As we all #RethinkBusinessTravel, time spent rethinking on how to protect your travel program against fraud attempts is time… well… well spent.
Not to be dramatic or anything, but it could be a matter of life and death.
Not for you…
but for your travel program…
or your T&E budget.
Here are some things you (and your team) should watch out for to prevent fraud…
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Business Travel Fraud Risk: Booking scams
We assume most of you are aware that scammers like to use fake third-party websites to lure travel buyers into purchasing fake trips or providing bank information. Though it probably seems obvious to avoid sketchy URLs and talk with vendors directly when making changes, plenty of us still fall for these tactics every. single. day.
The best way to avoid travel scam websites when booking business trips is simply by booking your travel through a reputable travel management company (TMC) like Gant Travel. We book all our clients’ travel directly through the GDS and other industry-standard direct connections, so we don’t interact with questionable third-party websites. Plus, we know a lot of the warning signs for a scam travel transaction and will alert you if we think someone is trying to use your company’s travel account fraudulently.
Beyond external fraud attempts, scams can also occur within your company’s online booking tool. A recent spike in fraudulent transactions booked through these platforms has led many travel champions to take extra steps to further protect their travel programs.
For organizations with a centralized program, the following can help protect your program data:
- Switch to Single Sign-On (SSO) Required. Enabling SSO adds an extra layer of authentication, ensuring that only authorized users can access your site. This will significantly reduce the risk of fraudulent login attempts.
- Lock Names and Email Addresses. Make names and primary email addresses non-editable. By doing so, you prevent malicious actors from altering user information to gain unauthorized access or impersonate legitimate users.
- Enforce Approval or Passive Approval Rule for All Trips. Require approval for all trip submissions or implement a passive approval rule, where trips are automatically approved after a certain period. This ensures that all expenses and travel bookings are reviewed and authorized, minimizing the chances of fraudulent or unauthorized expenses being processed.
- Change Password Administrator Credentials. It’s crucial to change the default password administrator credentials, which are often targeted by hackers. We recommend using a strong, unique password that is not easily guessable, preferably a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
Business Travel Fraud Risk: Credit cards
Recent surveys found that about one in six business travelers fall for credit card scams while they’re on the road for work. Plus, if you’re sending hotel authorization forms for non-cardholder employee or guest reservations, your entire card number is available to almost any employee working the front desk.
Even with fail safes in place, it can still happen to you or anyone else at your organization. Chances are – it probably has, and you are already aware of just how cumbersome getting a new corporate card can be.
Single-use virtual cards allow companies to protect their company card numbers against credit card fraud. They allow recruits, contractors, and non-card-holding employees to travel with a virtual credit card that can only be applied to a single reservation. End of reservation, end of credit card number – plus it gives a company control over what can and can’t be charged to the card during the trip.
Currently, only 1% of surveyed business travelers said virtual cards are their preferred payment method…
That’s a lot of room for fraud.
Our Solution: At Gant, we offer Gant Strategic Pay (GSP) – our automated solution to the third-party hotel authorization process. GSP minimizes the risk of having your company credit card number stolen. By only allowing the traveler and hotel to access a randomly generated single-use credit card, GSP adds an extra level of security. Additionally, companies can limit purchases by merchant category, total spend, spend type, and expiration date.
Business Travel Fraud Risk: Visa and passports
When it comes to international travel, fake third-party websites are also a HUGE problem. The U.S. Department of State (DOS) warns Americans to keep an eye out for fraudulent emails or letters related to visa and passport services. These emails may contain links to scam websites that only exist to steal your personal information.
Best practice is to make sure you’re always using official government websites for your visa and passport needs or use a well-known provider with a long, reputable history. Also, be sure to check subject lines and sender email addresses before you click anything in an unfamiliar email.
Our Solution: Gant clients automatically receive a few extra levels of security for all visa and passport services. Our partnership with CIBTvisas allows our clients to obtain business and other travel visas for corporations and individuals worldwide in a fast, convenient, and secure manner.
Business Travel Fraud Risk: Expense fraud
Unfortunately, fraud isn’t just an external threat. It’s more common than we realize for organizations to catch their employees misusing company funds or resources.
In business travel, this kind of fraud is especially common on expense reports. A traveler may report fake charges or higher amounts than actually purchased to receive more compensation than deserved for their trip.
A good rule of thumb to protect your organization is to require travelers to upload E-receipts when submitting their expense reports. This ensures that travel champions or another manager will be able to verify all transaction details before reimbursement occurs.
Our Solution: The Gant Gateway provides easy access to our long list of fully integrated travel tools, plus direct single sign-on linkage to Expense platforms for items such as invoices and expense reports.
Business Travel Fraud Risk: Unused ticket fraud
Expense fraud isn’t the only internal threat you have to worry about, either. Although no one likes to think that anyone within their own company would intentionally steal from the organization, the nature of unused tickets makes it very possible (and easy) to do.
In the event you have to cancel a flight, those unused tickets aren’t under your organization’s name – they’re under the travelers’ name. That means unless you put some tracking or protection in place, it’s incredibly easy for employees to use their corporate unused ticket on their own personal leisure travel. Jamaica, anyone?
Our Solution: At Gant, we’re able to track all of your company’s unused tickets (so long as you book with us). Our TicketRetriever tool effectively tracks and applies the value of airline vouchers that had previously gone untracked. We give you full visibility of your organization’s unused tickets and even give you the ability to reassign them to other members from your team right inside the Gateway.
An additional level of asset protection, many airlines now have policy that specifies business travelers must exchange their vouchers with the agency that booked the initial trip. By booking with Gant, vouchers are only used on trips that meet your company policy.
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Curious what else you can do to protect your travel program? Contact your Gant account manager, they’re here to help.
Not a Gant client yet? Get in touch at [email protected].
Not ready to reach out yet but want to learn more? Check out our previous blog post on Mitigating the Risk of Fraud in Your Travel Program.
Or you can learn about what the Champion, Finance, and Traveler experience looks like here at Gant Travel.
