KDS Survey Finds One-Fifth Of Travelers Commit Fraud

About one in five business travelers admitted to fraud in their expense reporting, with Americans the most likely to have cheated their employers with their filings, according to results released today from an online survey of almost 400 business travelers by European travel and expense reporting supplier KDS.

In the KDS survey, 21.4 percent of Americans indicated they had cheated on their expense claims. The most abused item for Americans were taxi charges. Overall, however, most who had admitted fraud said it was for less than €5, according to the survey.

The French had the second-highest percentage—20.6 percent—admitting to fraud, followed by Germany at 16.1 percent and the United Kingdom at 13 percent. Taxi charges also were the top expense item for fraud in the United Kingdom,whereas business mileage claims were the top item in France and Germany.

At the same time, 60 percent of respondents said they at some point have omitted legitimate expenses from their reports because of either lost receipts or forgetting about those expenses.