The Psychology of Expense Fraud
Photo Credit: Diners at a fancy restaurant. Expense and travel fraud seems like a bigger deal than it really is. Roam / Sara Herrlander
Skift Take
Expense and travel fraud seems like a bigger deal than it really is, according to experts. Some people are always going to be bad apples, taking on a huge amount of personal risk for just a few extra bucks. Human nature is strange.
With a few ongoing expense and travel fraud scandals happening in the U.S. government, I got to wondering: Are employees really trying to game the expense system in ridiculous ways?
Well, no. Most of the time, employees are either screwing up when they ask to be reimbursed for more than they spend, or they are engaged in a high-stakes yet low-reward game to milk a few hundred extra dollars out of their company over the course of the year.
Things like genuine corruption and asset mismanagement are much bigger threats to a company's bottom-line than the employee who wants $20 back for buying a $9 burrito
