To reduce travel charge card delinquencies by your employees, you should consider implementing one or more of the following suggestions (this list is not comprehensive; you may adopt other appropriate procedures):

(a) Agency travel program coordinators must be trained and aware of their responsibilities and the delinquency management tools available under your agreement with the travel charge card contractor (internet training is available for the GSA SmartPayTM Travel Charge Card at: http://www.gsa.gov/traveltraining.

(b) Ensure that managers and supervisors are provided monthly delinquency and questionable charges report.

(c) Periodically, but at least once a year, verify that cardholders are still current employees.

(d) For inactive accounts (cards not used within 6 months, one year, etc., reduce card limit to $1, increase dollar limit when necessary.

(e) Work with the charge card contractor to block certain high-risk category codes (e.g., department stores, automobile dealerships, specialty stores), etc.

(f) Review ATM cash withdrawals for reasonableness and association with official travel.

(g) Implement a salary offset program. (See part 301-76 of this chapter).

(h) Implement split disbursement in your travel vouchering system, so that an employee may authorize you to make certain payments directly to the charge card contractor on the employee's behalf.

(i) Refer potential fraud cases to your agency IG for investigation.

(j) For some helpful do's and don'ts for travel cardholders, see GSA publication (Card-F001) entitled “Helpful Hints for Travel Cardholders”. This publication is available on the Internet at http://fss.gsa.gov/services/gsa-smartpay. Click on “Publications and Presentations” and under “Publications,” click on “Helpful Hints for Travel Card Use”.

(k) Ensure that employees turn in their travel charge card when they retire or leave the agency.

[FTR Amdt. 108, 67 FR 57967, Sept. 13, 2002, as amended by FTR Amdt. 2007-05, 72 FR 61539, Oct. 31, 2007. Redesignated by FTR Amdt. 2010-02, 75 FR 24436, May 5, 2010]