'I caught a guy trying to buy a $30k boat': 20+ Employees who overspent on their company credit card

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Feb 18, 2025 11:00 AM EST

Company credit cards: How do they work, and what are they for? These are just two questions you'd think employees would ask before racking up thousands of dollars on said credit card. But no! Some employees think that their employer's credit card is their own personal line of credit… and most of them paid a high price for these misunderstandings. 

Just in case you're unfamiliar with them, company credit cards are often given to higher-ups in corporate roles. That way, when they take a client out to a swanky lunch and pay for their rides afterwards, it's immediately covered by the company. An employee shouldn't have to foot the bill for things like that, so the employer does. Easy! 

However, some employees take advantage of this, seeing it as an unlimited-money scenario. Instead of using that plastic card for buying a casual lunch for their team, some people will go out and buy 6 new suits. Yes, one dude actually did that, and expected the company to just grin and tell him how great he looked in those new rags, I suppose? A common way people got caught was filling up their spouses' cars while they were supposed to just be putting gas in the company car. After a quick audit or two, it was all over for those employees. 

Up next, read about the job interviews that couldn't have possibly gone worse, like one hiring manager who shared that they "had a guy take almost every pen in the room." 

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  • 01
    'One guy bought a $500 watch and wrote down on his [company expense] spreadsheet, "Watch to replace my broken one.""
    via Andrea Natali on Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02

    "What was the dumbest thing you ever saw someone do with a corporate credit card?"

    [deleted] Buy approximately $65 of gas four times in one hour. He only had 1 company car but 3 personal cars at home. After an audit, he had been getting away with it for over a year.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 03

    Some employees think that just because they've gotten away with something for a long time means that they're safe...

    Ad... Had a friend who managed to spend $20k on her corporate card over the course of about a year and a half. Apparently she felt like she wasn't being compensated or treated well at her job (even though she actually was) and would go out and buy things on the card.
    via u/AdelaisV

    But they could be caught at any time, and if you've stolen $20k worth of stuff, your company might decide to bring in police to deal with you. 

  • 04
    Dinner, gas, books, make up, clothes, etc. After the fact she told me that, in the beginning, she'd been careful to buy things. only at places she knew her boss and his partner (the only 2 other people who had cards on the account) would shop. Then she tossed all reason aside and would basically hijack the credit card bill every month and cut it up and reprint it
    via u/AdelaisV
  • 05
    without her purchases on there like her boss or his accountant would never notice the discrepancy in dollar amounts. One day her boss called her into his office and she thought she was going to get a raise. NOPE! Credit card statements all over the place. The ultimatum was, pay the money back within the week or be charged. She
    via u/AdelaisV
  • 06
    had to beg a relative for the money. The dumbest part was, even after all of that, she still didn't think she was the bad person in the situation. We stopped being friends shortly after that.
    via u/AdelaisV
  • 07
    alltechrx A co-worker was dating someone that also worked for our company. He used his company card to buy an addition to the girls friends house. Something like a 20k addition. The accountants caught it, and started digging around to figure out why we had bought so much wood, drywall, and other building materials. Finally someone got the idea to
    via u/alltechrx
  • 08
    start driving around and looking at the employees homes, and found the huge addition on the girlfriends. home. They were both fired for theft. The BEST part is that it wasn't even her house, it was a rental. Once she lost her job she couldn't afford the rent anymore, and got evicted.
    via u/alltechrx
  • 09
    I'm sure the landlord was laughing his a off at the whole thing, got a nice free addition.
    via u/alltechrx
  • 10
    Kingjaybaby I was bartending one night. It was a Thursday so karoake was going on. Guy walked in in a business suit walked up to the bar and said "as long as I'm here everything is on this card." | said "sure enough what would you like to drink". He said "when I say everything I mean every drink, shot, and food for every person". He stayed until close and tallied
    via u/Kingjaybaby
  • 11
    up a huge tab. Tipped 50%. Come to find out he had been let go but the company forgot to take his credit card. I don't know what ever happened legally but I made. close to 1k in tips that's night.
    via u/Kingjaybaby
  • 12
    red... Back when I was in high school I took a cooking class, this is in a small town where the grocery store is only a stones throw away from the high school and cooking students are often sent to the store to pick up ingredients, when a student would do this they would get a little card which they used to pay and they would have sign a little form at the till
    via u/redblazerealty
  • 13
    (source did this several times) so this one day the teacher ask this kid to go the store to get oats, he comes back with a bag completely full, when he's asked how much he spent on said oats he responds "about 200 dollars" as if that was a completely normal amount of money to spend on oats I wish I was kidding
    via u/redblazerealty
  • 14
    notasushifan Guy bought a diamond ring for his wife. When it was brought up to him he said he was going to pay it off (except he never mentioned it to anyone until he was caught). Instead of firing him they took it out of his next six (or more) paychecks. Nice interest free loan for him.
    via u/notasushifan
  • 15

    Extremely hilarious

    [deleted] There was an ask reddit for what did someone do to get fired on the first day. Dude went out on the corporate card and bought like 6 suits on his corporate card on his lunch break.
    via u/[deleted]

    I wonder if he got to keep the suits, so at least he'll look fresh while he's searching for his next job! 

  • 16
    [deleted] I once ran an audit for a company... who through my audit, found out that an employee was using her manager's credit card to foot her personal purchases. Stuff on the receipt includes massive orders for protein bars, endless entries to Paypal, and even tickets for 2 to an NFL game.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 17
    Thousands of dollars - apparently no regret was shown as she was getting canned. So stupid.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 18
    derek_g_S guy i know took his family on a ski trip to aspen. Every year. For 8 years.
    via u/derek_g_S
  • 19
    Aiku The first day on the job, a Starbucks employee charged my corporate Amex card $4500 for a latte, instead of $4.50.
    via u/Aiku
  • 20
    jthe... Worked at a retail company that gave all of its store managers corporate cards. The cards had high limits on them so the store managers could use that instead of maintaining petty cash on hand or having to use personal cards while traveling for training. While visiting one of the stores I asked where there
    via u/jthe357
  • 21
    keurig machine was. I wanted a coffee and the closest Starbucks was a few blocks away. I had seen the manager submit her expense report with a purchase for a keurig machine, k-cups, a small bathroom fixture and a few other things. The assistant manager says "we don't have a keurig machine."
    via u/jthe357
  • 22
    After looking into it further, turns out the manager had been using the card to buy several personal items over the last few years. Ended up repaying a little over $20k in purchases.
    via u/jthe357
  • 23
    DaddyJBird Dude tried to pass off a $350 spa package as a gift for a client. Problem is we have no clients based near us the closest being some 2000 miles away.
    via u/DaddyJBird
  • 24

    Kids today don't even know about iTunes

    taldeital my boss wasted 127$ on iTunes to download "some" music.
    via u/taldeital

    Before Spotify and abundant free music, we were all paying 99 cents for a single song! 

  • 25
    veg... Guy lived across the country, and commuted at the beginning and end of every week. For the first few months, any of his flight or lodging expenses could be covered by the company, per his contract. After that time expired, he was expected to have either moved here permanently, or start covering his own transportation and hotels if
    via u/veggiesaur
  • 26
    he chose to keep commuting every week. He simply never stopped charging his company card for it. He tried to get clever with it too - would route his flights through other cities. and pretend he was conducting business there, so they were technically supposed to be covered by the company, and would "lose" hotel receipts thinking it would be impossible to prove that the
    via u/veggiesaur
  • 27
    hotels he was staying in were local to us. After nearly a year of catching these things and having to make him write the company a personal check every month, they finally fired him.
    via u/veggiesaur
  • 28
    [deleted] Invited their landlord out to a night on the town, in lieu of rent payment, and told the company it was for a sales lead so they charged the dinner and drinks to the company card. Basically free rent.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 29

    A simple misunderstanding

    Yerok-The-Warrior When the Army first went to a travel card system they initially used Amex. The cards had no limit and were activated at all times. One of my soldiers went out and bought a set of rims for his personal vehicle to the tune of $2,500.
    via u/Yerok-The-Warrior
  • 30
    Now, there are limits and the cards are deactivated until needed.
    via u/Yerok-The-Warrior
  • 31
    Cheezburger Image 10469282560
    via Bradley Pisney on Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 32
    lovebyletters Purchased lavish dinners at a local surf'n'turf (copious amounts of liquor included) for himself and his mistress (they were both married & his wife actually had a chronic illness) and then claim that the expenses were staff appreciation events. Actually what got him fired, since when they auditors
    via u/lovebyletters
  • 33
    came they asked employees "What did you do at the staff appreciation event on X date?" and we were all like "What staff appreciation event?" Honestly, at the time it was hilarious that THIS was what resulted in his firing since he was doing so much else that was so much worse -- hired his mistress, slept with her at work and fired everyone who caught them at it, she
    via u/lovebyletters
  • 34
    hired another relative for a basically janitorial role & paid him $30/hr (going rate for that position: $10/hr), cut salaries without cause and claimed it was because they'd maxed out, never attended meetings, stopped paying company bills (large corp had us on must- prepay-cash-only, which is UNHEARD OF for our industry) ... etc.
    via u/lovebyletters
  • 35
    But the use of the corporate card was what he got canned on, since it was the easiest for them to prove.
    via u/lovebyletters
  • 36
    A_B _In_The_... Using the company card to buy gas for a company car that was on a paid fuel card separate from the company credit card, and then also expensing the receipts for both the credit card fuel bill and the driven mileage.
    via u/A_Bo*ger_In_The_Hand
  • 37
    picksandchooses During the 2008 recession the president of the company took a pay cut so he just started putting everything on his company card; all the gas for his families cars, dinners for his daughter's volleyball team, TV for his son's apartment, on and on, no real attempt to hide any of it. The accounting department started complaining about it,
    via u/picksandchooses
  • 38
    he told them to just put it in. Finally the head accountant just said no, she couldn't sign her name to this stuff anymore. President of the company fired her on the spot, even calling the police to help her out of the building, telling them he suspected her of embezzling but couldn't prove it, but he feared for his safety.
    via u/picksandchooses
  • 39
    A year later the scumbag golden parachuted out of the company. The company barely survived.
    via u/picksandchooses
  • 40
    pushchop I used to review credit card purchases. Employees would have to submit receipts and explain what each line item was for. One guy bought a $500 watch and wrote down on his spreadsheet "watch to replace my broken one."
    via u/pushchop
  • 41
    Apparently he felt his personal wristwatch was work-related and worthy of replacing with Swiss watch with automatic movement.
    via u/pushchop
  • 42
    Woodsy2575 My dad and I bought Pokemon cards. Granted it was his business
    via u/Woodsy2575

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