Navy travel card program prone to abuse

Weak internal controls have left the Navy's travel card program vulnerable to fraud and abuse that included an expensive episode of Internet gambling, according to a report released Monday by the General Accounting Office.

GAO found an average delinquency rate of about 12 percent for the Navy's individually billed cards. As of March 31, 2002, more than 8,000 cardholders had amassed more than $6 million in delinquent debt, according to the GAO, which also found numerous cases of "abusive" card activity. For example, the cards were used in 35 Internet gambling transactions that cost $23,000.

GAO recommended that the Navy review the security clearances of cardholders with financial problems and consider deactivating all travel cards when the cardholders are not on authorized travel. The Navy, meanwhile, is considering steps such as posting travel card procedures on the Internet and "mining" data on the cards to identify problem areas and abuses.