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Contents Edited by the
Administration & Finance Customer
Service Center
Consequences of P-Card and Travel Card Fraud
P-Cards and Travel Cards may only be
used for authorized expenditures that
benefit the university. They may not be used
for personal expenditures or expenditures
that violate university policy.
If a
cardholder accidently uses his/her P-Card or
Travel Card for a non-university or
unauthorized purchase, he/she should
immediately return the item purchased to the
vendor, if possible, for a refund to the
credit card. If that is not possible, he/she
should write a personal check payable to the
University of Houston for the amount of the
purchase and give the check to his/her
department to deposit in the same cost
center and account where the expense will be
posted. In either case, the SDOL Expense
Report signed by the cardholder should
indicate that a purchase was made by mistake
and credited back to the card or refunded by
the cardholder. These incidents should be
reported to Accounts Payable. After three
accidental non-university or unauthorized
purchases, assuming the money is refunded,
the P-Card or Travel Card will be cancelled.
If a cardholder purposely misuses his/her
P-Card or Travel Card, as indicated by
multiple unauthorized transactions in a
short period, an unauthorized transaction
for a large dollar amount, falsifying
documentation of purchases, or not
reimbursing UH for “accidental” purchases,
the unauthorized purchase may be considered
fraud. Purchases suspected to be fraudulent
must be reported in accordance with
SAM
01.C.04, Reporting/Investigating Fraudulent
Acts. In accordance with this policy,
suspected fraud must be reported to law
enforcement for investigation and referral
to the District Attorney. The card will be
suspended or canceled pending the outcome of
the investigation. If it is determined that
fraud has occurred, the employee will likely
be terminated and criminally prosecuted.
In the past six months, three UH System employees have been
terminated and are undergoing criminal
prosecution for
fraudulent purchases with P-Cards or Travel
Cards. Some of them
were reported through the MySafeCampus fraud
hotline (www.mysafecampus.com
or 1.800.716.9007) and others were
discovered by their department or Accounts
Payable during the monthly review of
transactions. For more information about
reporting fraud through
MySafeCampus,
visit the
Fraud and Institutional Compliance
page on the
Finance
website.
