Travel Charge Card

[BMCS Dennis Endicott ret]

I'm interested to hear opinions about the success/lack of success of the travel charge card program. There are a lot of delinquencies and abuses and the attempted remedies have shifted from placing the responsibility on the member (that didn't work) to the supervisors. What do you think about having to monitor your subordinates travel card use?

[BMCM Steve Cantrell]

Good point. Presently some of the Group AOs are monitoring the use of the cards. I used to think it was strange for a SN to have a travel card, but it's so much easier for them (and me) when they don't have to worry about someone else getting their plane tickets or rental cars and when we don't have to set them up for getting advances, etc. In a couple of cases here, we have gotten travel cards for the junior folks (E-2, E-3s) and had their spending limit set to $1. If they get orders and have to travel, you just call the administrator and have them get Citibank to raise the limit. It happens in a matter of a couple of phone calls. When the member returns, we help them with their travel claim in UTS (we need a separate thread on UTS) and then get their limit lowered back to a dollar. A lot less hassle than trying to police them...just keep their limits where they can't get in trouble. I guess getting them to pay the bill after they receive their travel claim is another issue..

[BMCS Dennis Endicott ret]

Steve,
That's a good idea about lowering the limit. I never thought of that. But, like you said, there is still the issue of ensuring that payment is made to the credit card company.
This program has had problems for years. I think that we should look at improving/streamlining the old cash advance system instead. That would be more work on the YNs, but less responsibility on the member and the member's command.
We do have to stop blaming the member and the member's supervisors for the program's difficulties, though. If it aint working, it aint working.

[DCCS Keith Wilbee]

Gents Im on my 9th unit in my career. I was issued a diners club card and the responsibility that went with it. I was one of the last E-3's to have a deployable billet from a Station with a Ledet at the group. I was issued blanket orders for the quarter and was expected to pay it on time and I always did. Ive held many credit cards for the government. I was always trained on what I could and could not do. We as Chiefs need to ensure our people are afforded the training that comes with the cards. Yes I know people still charge personal items. Were they properly informed of what could and could not be purchased on the cards? Were the members held accountable for there actions. My guess is probably not. I pass on to my troops the importance of being responsible members of the Coast Guard and making wise decisions no matter what it is. I do think that as with some other matters of personal interest that its not the same across the Coast Guard.

[PACS Steve Carleton]

The issue of paying our bills on time is a personal responsibility. We can give our people the tools, and we can supervise them in the use of those tools, kind of like teaching an SN the proper technique for needlegunning rust. The same thing must be done with the Govt. Travel Card.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I remember reading in Navy Times some time back that they were experimenting with the idea of sending Travel Claim payments directly to the Card Company. As I recall, the old paper travel claims did have a box that you could check for credit card, check or EFT.

I think that would be a good idea along with the raising and lowering of the limits on an as needed basis.

(as the only PA on here so far, I am making it my personal mission not to screw up my speeling :D )

[BMCS Mark Stauffer]

Steve-
You are exactly right about the payment of the travel card, there used to be a block where Fincen would send payment to the travel card company and the rest to you. This should be a requirement for all of us. I think the problem with it is if the payment was due before you could submit your travel claim. This would have to be worked out by HQ, the credit card company and Fincen. I think the CG would see a massive reduction in credit card abuse if they used the direct payment method along with the new policy on lowering the credit limit when the member is not going TAD.

[BMC Ken Gouge]

I guess this is the UTS tie-in you wanted. I reported in on the 17th of July and had my travel claim in the mail that same day. Having already changed my adress with Citibank, I have the bill waiting in my in box.

With UTS they trust the Command to review the receipts, orders and claim and approve it if it is TAD travel. The member receives the reimbursement in about a week.

Why is it that I am still waiting for my PCS claim to go through over 30 days? Maybe I'm stubborn, but having done everything to this point to program standards I refuse to pay until I see the claim. It's just a matter of principle to me. If they would let UTS be the only way that claims are processed, the system wouldn't bog down during transfer season.

Ken

[BMC Kerry Wagoner]

I have seen both good and bad things come from the travel card program. The biggest positive I have seen is the ability of the member to make their own travel plans and the command being relieved of this job. The biggest disadvantage is the payment of the card bill when it comes due. Several factors have a big part in the lack of prompt payments. First, the member, second FINCEN and third, the member again. I listed the member twice because the member starts and finishes the process. If only the Coast Guard would make direct payments to CitiBank, then 99.99% of the late payment problems would go away. How hard would it be for FINCEN to instead of direct depositing the travel claim into the members account just send it to CitiBank. And another thing to help the problems would be for CitiBank to acknowledge the fact that the government financial system does not work as fast as the private sector does.

[PACS Steve Carleton]

Not sure what problems are being experienced outthere with UTS, but I do not have a problem with getting monies back from travel claims. And love using the Travel Card, the convenience and speed is the best part.

Case in point: Post typhoon response to Guam a week-and-a-half ago. Returned in the wee hours of last Friday morning, filed travel claim on on Tuesday, got e-mail from PSC that claim is approved with the amount. Just checked the bank account and the money is already there.

After signing off the boards tonight, I will set up an electronic payment from home and the money will be there before I even get the bill.

This is not how I used to be. Way back when, when I stood on the wrong side of the table and answered to the man about a UCMJ violation or two, it was because I didn't pay my AMEX bill.

Lesson learned, now I am anal retentive about that travel claim and bill process.

[ETCS Robert Kelley]

I have to agree with Ken on not paying the credit card bill before I receive the travel claim settlement strictly on principal. I recently made advanced hotel reservation as directed by CGHQ via message. The hotel charged my travel card for one day to hold the reservation. I received a bill from Citibank before I departed for the TAD week. I returned late Friday evening and had my travel claim endorsed at the unit on the following Monday and forwarded via UTS. I received the settlement document via e-mail on Thursday. The deposit was made to my account the following Tuesday and I paid the bill electronically. In the meantime I received two delinquency notices from the local ISC, the second one included sample CG-3307 entries. After following up with the author of the first letter, who had no information I requested the program coordinator be included on my question. I received a reply from the program coordinator (Scott R. Arndt) who said “HQ has not been placing emphases on accounts that are 30 days past due”. I am not sure why the accounts cannot be accessed on-line to verify charges prior to receiving the paper bill and indicating on the travel claim the amount to be paid directly to the credit card company (usually the entire balance but this will give the member the ability to not pay disputed charges until they are resolved). Also the first time the credit card company contacts the Coast Guard that POC should be able to determine if a travel claim has been submitted and take appropriate follow up action from there rather than have unpaid bills generate notices from the local Travel Card coordinator. There are many benefits to the Travel Card program, both from the Coast Guard and member’s point of view but the increased number of messages and delinquency notices indicate there is significant room for improvement.

Bob

[BMCS Jim Madsen]

I recently completed a tour in PACAREA Training Team where my credit card got quite a workout. I got pretty familiar with UTS as well. When it works it is great. That is most of the time. NOT all of the time. I believe that it is the responsibility of the MEMBER to pay their bills. We are all grown ups here. On the other hand, I agree with Ken. Don't pay a dime until you are re-imbursed the monies that you are entitled to. That is a system problem. If a member travel's in excess of 21 days, then they need to do a supplemental travel claim to get paid so they can "pay their bills". Maybe this requires trainining. If the member has not been re-imbursed by the time the bill is due, a simple call to the credit card company to tell them that you are still waiting for re-imbursment will normally head off any nasty-grams. That is just my experience. On the other hand, I have had to send two people down the road in my career in part due to the fact that they abused the system. Abused their credit cards and brought discredit upon the Coast Guard in the process. They were both Petty Officer's that had the proper training and knew better, but thought they needed to spend the money on other things. UTS is generally a great improvement over what we had. It would be nice to be able to use it for PCS claims as well.

[BMCS Dennis Endicott ret]

The following is an email sent by Captain Marshall (D8 Chief of Staff) to all COs and OICs in the district. He places responsibility for deliquent credit cards directly at the feet of anyone in a position of responsibility. What do you think? Are you responsible for your subordinates deliquencies?

All,

As you will see below, the Charge Card Delinquency problem has worked it's way to the highest levels of the Coast Guard! On the day I received the email below from the LANTAREA Chief of Staff stating that this problem was getting strong visibility by the 3-stars, we received a letter from the Commandant (4 -star) requesting we take action to fix this problem. I assure you they ALL have our attention.

Actually, when you get down to it, this is a professionally embarrassing problem! If you read the email stream below you'll see that the DHS average is around 1% delinquency, while the Coast Guard is greater than 5%, which drags the entire DHS average to 2%. And this is only for people who have missed THREE billing cycles. That's embarrassing and easy to see why the Commandant wants it fixed.

I have seen a lot of action from Master Chief's Najera, and Krehmeier on this topic, and I applaud their efforts to get the Silver Badge Network involved and engaged. But I don't think that's enough. In my opinion this is a leadership issue for the COMMAND! CO's and OINC's must get involved and support your Silver Badges in their efforts, because when the time comes for accountability, I won't be calling the Silver Badges, I'll be calling YOU!

The D8 staff will do everything we can to ensure you have the most up to date, and accurate, information about your unit. There was some confusion for a time on what "3%" actually meant. We think that has been cleared up. It is NOT 3% of the total number of people at your unit, it's 3% of the total amount of dollars that have been charged. That means that one "really bad apple" can skew the data at your unit well above the limit. For a while they granted some leniency because "the system" was slow in paying travel claims. THAT EXCUSE NO LONGER APPLIES! If the member files, it will get paid very quickly!

So where does that leave us? D8 will NOT be issuing any lengthy directions or OPORDERs on this, COMDTINST 4600.14A dtd 29 Aug, 1996 still applies. This is a Command issue and must be solved at the local level. I urge you to discuss this with your Silver Badges, and then TAKE ACTION at your Units. They should know how to get the latest data on your folks, and allow you to take the appropriate action. If you have any questions, there are plenty of smart people at the ISC's and at D8 that can help. I realize there will be a significant lag in the data that indicates we are making progress, but to do that we need for our CO's and OINC's to take action NOW.

Thanks.

Capt Kevin L. Marshall
Chief of Staff
Eighth Coast Guard District

[BMCM Stuart S. Slesh]

Absolutely not. It was a horrible idea to give credit cards out to people who creditors never would have. There was wide spread rampant abuses that went unpunished because no policy was enforced. This was another program that was designed to make life easier on the support personnel and place the responsibility back on the user. Now they want to hold the commands responsible for the abuses they were to short sighted to see coming. PLEEEAAASEEE. If I'm going to be held accountable for my crews charges, I'm going to be holding their cards in my safe and they can sign them out before traveling with orders. What do they want us to do, sit down on the first and fifteenth of every month, check every members financial agenda and give the kids their allowance ? Why don't they send out the deliquent user information after the first month like our PCA accounts ? Are they willing to let us cut up the cards of the abuser ? People need to be held accountable for their actions. If the CG looks bad because of this, there's a reason.......it was a stupid idea. You don't give a kid a key to the candy store and say, I'm trusting you to do what's right, I won't be checking on you, and if you screw up, I'm not really going to do anything about it, I won't take the key back because you may need it in the future, but I will be very disappointed in you. Only use this key for official purposes.
Brilliant plan. I totally shocked that some people abused this flawless plan.

[BMCS Dennis Endicott ret]

Stuart,
It doesn't matter if it is a good program or not. The issue is how make it work properly, now that it is in effect. If we can't rely on everyone to pay their bills on time, how do we as Chiefs intervene?

I don't know that it was fair of the Captain to compare the CG average to the overall DHS average. I doubt that the rest of DHS has the same percentage of under-21 employess with govt charge cards, or employees that travel as much. Age/Maturity and frequency of use have to contribute to the liklihood of a higher average.

We verify credit card statements for unit purchases, so why would it be such a stretch to get involved with travel cards? I would think, that verification of the travel cards would take less time.

I don't like the program and have had some personal difficulties with it myself. I also agree that it made life easier for the support units and placed the burden on the member and the command. But, it's here, so let's fix it.

Somebody needs to write a program that will allow us to verify payment on a monthly basis (just like unit purchases) that is easy to access and even easier to use. I see that as a simple solution. Anybody care to disagree?

[BMCM Deane Smith]

Whether you want to hear this or not...It's not that hard to manage this program (if you do what you're suppose to).

1. Hold all cards of those that need it. Have the XPO lock them up and hand them out prior to travel.

2. Decrease the limit to $1.00 on those that don't travel on a regular basis. Then you call and initiate the credit limit be raised to whatever their limit is.

3. Go into direct access and print out the report at least monthly. This will tell you immediately if there are problems. If someone has a balance and they haven't traveled...red flags should be going up.

Yes, a small amount of work has to be put into this, but it's not that difficult.

Will this catch all infractions of misuse? No, but its good start. It will surely let your people know that you're paying attention. That may be all that's necessary!

[BMCS Dennis Endicott ret]

I assume when your talking individual reports in Direct Access. That's a lot of extra work. We need unit consolidated reports. We need a new program.

[BMCS Nick Pupo]

Dennis, you can go into Direct Access and get a consolidated report for everybody who has a Travel Charge Card.

[BMCM Deane Smith]

Dennis, It's a consolidated unit report of all personnel assigned. It takes all of about 2 minutes to get and print the report.

The report shows various details of the account. It shows what the credit limit is, It shows who has a balance on their card and shows if members balance is outstanding (30, 60, 90 120+ days overdue).

I like having the card for use. I think it beats the alternative. I don't like getting a pile of travelers checks, I'd rather have the card.

What's a better alternative?

[BMCS Dennis Endicott ret]

I didn't know that about the consolidated report. Good info.

Credit cards might have some great advantages, but the old traveler checks issued in advance at 80% of expected expenses was a pretty good way to stay out of trouble.

Still, I guess the cards are the best alternative.

[BMCM Stuart S. Slesh]

"percentage of under-21 employess with govt charge cards",

I'm hearing that that's not where the issue lies. People are telling me the highest percentage of offenders are O-3 and above. And according to the 20/20 and 60 minute reports the violations include lap dances and jewerly purchases. The card is great in the hands of mature responsible adults. The problem lies in the fact the the CG issues them to everyone else. I don't have issues at my unit, but if I did I would treat it like any other report of indebtiness. If we don't hold people accountable for their actions, they never will be. I think if we saw the list of the deliquent users we would all be surprised. Where your Captain wants you to hold your crew accountable.....?......what is he going to do to the Os who are deliquent and answer to him ? Again as Chiefs, finacial responsiblity needs to enforced with our subordinates.

[BMCS Nick Pupo]

Stu, I agree we currently have 28 people assigned and 22 of those hold cards. I have been here 18 months and have had not issues with any abuse of the card(knock wood).
When the person gets the card I make it clear what the purpose of that card is.
In my view if we treat our people like adults for the most part they will act like adults. But there are exceptions.