A sampling of over 12 agencies revealed that nearly 41 percent of roughly $14 billion in credit-card purchases, whether legitimate or questionable, were not properly authorized or had not been signed for by an independent third party, as mandated by federal rules to deter fraud.

* A postmaster at USPS used his government purchase card to fraudulently subscribe to two Internet dating services over 15 consecutive months. (Not surprisingly, a love connection was never made.) The cardholder paid restitution of over $1,100 but faced no disciplinary action for this fraud.

* A Department of Agriculture employee fraudulently paid over $642,000 to her boyfriend which was used for personal expenditures, such as gambling, car loan and mortgage payments, and other retail purchases over a 6-year period. The woman was turned in by a whistleblower, sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of over $642,000.

* USPS paid over $13,000 for 8,121 conference attendees to dine at an upscale steak restaurant which cost over $160 per person.

* At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a cardholder used the government purchase card to acquire two 60GB iPods personalized with the requester’s and agency’s names and to store songs and music videos. Although the iPods had some business files on them, GAO concluded that the purchase was abusive because other data storage devices without video and audio capabilities were available at lower costs.

* A National Science Foundation government purchase card was used to transact over $1,800 in fraudulent purchases at a nail salon and women’s accessory and specialty store.

* During fiscal year 2006, four DOD cardholders purchased clothing and accessories for servicemembers, including expensive clothing totaling over $45,000 from high-end vendors, for example, Brooks Brothers, Talbot’s, and Johnston Murphy.

Are the employees who did this going to be fired? They should be, they are wasting our money.