Having a corporate job comes with its fair share of pros and cons. On one hand, there are the endless deadlines, meetings, and stress. On the other hand, well, the paycheck makes it worthwhile, and sometimes the perks aren’t too bad either. One of those perks? A shiny corporate credit card. But here’s the catch: what happens when people take advantage of it in the dumbest ways possible?
Someone online recently asked, “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen someone buy with a corporate card?” And the answers? They range from bizarre to flat-out outrageous. From strange impulse buys to jaw-dropping splurges, these stories highlight exactly what you should never even think of charging to your company account. Keep reading to see the most ridiculous ways people misused their corporate credit cards.
#1
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.” I 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 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.
Image source: Kingjaybaby, cottonbro studio
#2
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.
Image source: anon, Engin Akyurt
#3
The first day on the job, a Starbucks employee charged my corporate Amex card $4500 for a latte, instead of $4.50.
#4
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 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.
I’m sure the landlord was laughing his a*s off at the whole thing, got a nice free addition.
Image source: alltechrx, Rene Terp
#5
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 (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.
Image source: redblazerrealty, prostooleh
#6
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.
Image source: anon, Getty Images
#7
I worked at a strip club back in the 90’s and a customer ran up a $3500 tab on his corporate Amex and left without closing it out. A few days later we got a visit from the police as he reported the card stolen. Thing is he was a regular and we had plenty of video footage of him getting lap dances while wearing his corporate issued polo shirt. He not only got fired but was charged with filing a false police report which led to his wife divorcing him for being such an adult dancer loving idiot.
Image source: Star90s, CardMapr.nl
#8
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. 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 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 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.
Image source: AdelaisV, freepik
#9
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, 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 escort her out of the building, telling them he suspected her of embezzling but couldn’t prove it, but he feared for his safety.
A year later he golden parachuted out of the company. The company barely survived.
Image source: picksandchooses, Kuncheek
#10
Old company I worked for;
Give guy corporate card to go buy groceries for the home he was working at. Three hours later didn’t come back or return calls. My boss looked at the account to see if there was any action on it…low and behold a $600.00 charge for at a Best Buy.
Safe to say dude thoroughly stepped in it and was not answering his phone but did respond to a text that basically said “frick you I quit” the next morning.
He was also thoroughly disappointed when he came to get his last check and realized it was about $30 bucks…
Image source: godbullseye, energepic.com
#11
We had a co-worker, may he rest in peace. He spent €13,000 in the adult dancer club with the company card. He would have spent more if the bank hadn’t blocked the card.
Image source: O-shi, Level 23 Media
#12
When working away, while not officially authorised, but never queried, it was generally accepted the manager there would take the workers out for a couple of drinks at the end of whatever we were doing.
Not a full p**s up but a round or two at the nearest bar to where we were staying.
Manager had been out most of the day with another boss drinking when we finished work late in the afternoon, we went to the bar to have a few beers and something to eat at the hotel we were staying at.
“It’s ok I’ll get this one!”
About 5 rounds later we were all like “Erm are you sure this is fine?!”
“Yerush iftt’ss okayyy!!”
I’m a decent drinkier but even I was rat-arsed at the end of the night.
Wake up around 10.am and go down for food.
Apparently the majority of the booze drank that night went on the card.
We “officially” didn’t get in trouble.
But now you can only use the company card for sanctioned work events…..
#13
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.
Thousands of dollars – apparently no regret was shown as she was getting canned.
So stupid.
Image source: anon, Frolopiaton Palm
#14
I use to audit corporate card purchases for a fortune 50 company. I caught a guy trying to buy a $30k boat from Bass Pro and a $15k walk-in humidor.
Image source: eyefearnobeer, Getty Images
#15
Guy i know took his family on a ski trip to aspen. Every year. For 8 years.
Image source: derek_g_S, Greg Rosenke
#16
Not quite a corporate credit card, but in the same vein.
Many years ago, when I was in college, our student government had a “retreat” near the start of the year. The college agreed to reimburse for food, so the submitted their receipts, including their liquor store receipt. Not only will the college not pay for alcohol, drinking was forbidden at school-sponsored events. Apparently this fact was made abundantly clear to the student government. The entire government had to resign and new elections were held.
Image source: hansn
#17
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 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.”
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.
Image source: jthe357
#18
Not me personally but my roommate went to a networking thing out of state paid for by the company. All the salesmen have corporate cards for taking out clients and such. The second night there they all head to the strip club. One of the new guys charged about $500 on his card at the club. He reported it stolen after the trip and as far as I’ve heard nothing came of it.
Image source: Wolffaced
#19
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.
Now, there are limits and the cards are deactivated until needed.
Image source: Yerok-The-Warrior
#20
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 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 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.
Image source: veggiesaur
#21
I’m horrified to even have my corporate card in my wallet. But I did show it to a cashier to get a student discount. He asked if I had a student ID so I flashed my university corporate credit card and he believed it.
Image source: RoleModelFailure
#22
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.” Apparently he felt his personal wristwatch was work-related and worthy of replacing with Swiss watch with automatic movement.
Image source: pushchop
#23
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.
Image source: anon
#24
A guy I worked with went down a dark road. Like Leaving Las Vegas dark. Hr maxed it in a month on booze and electronics. A trip was in there too. Lost his job and moved to Arizona.
Image source: anon
#25
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 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 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.
But the use of the corporate card was what he got canned on, since it was the easiest for them to prove.
Image source: lovebyletters
#26
Buy a $20,000 mail order bride, frantically try to get money to pay it off, obviously can’t hide it, gets fired.
Image source: anon
#27
I knew a guy with a coworker who used his corporate cc to pay someone oversees to do his work for him. He collected his paycheck and expensed the contractor doing his work for about a year before terminated. Maybe it was the smartest thing done with a corp card.. idk.
Image source: onlyinmemes100
#28
My boss wasted 127$ on iTunes to download “some” music.
Image source: taldeital
#29
Late ’90s, the superintendent of my local school district used a district credit card to buy about $300 worth of dinners and booze for school board members during a business trip in New York. Got charged with theft because of the alcohol purchases, even though he reimbursed the district when he did his expense report. After a lot of investigating and court time, the superintendent was fined $100 and had to resign. He then had to settle for becoming the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, the seventh largest district in the nation. That’ll learn him.
Image source: ccguy
#30
I don’t know that this is dumb since it was legit, but it’s still shocking to me. I was at a conference with the big partners from my firm and got invited out to dinner with them and a prospective client. There were about 8 of us in total at a nice steak house. I’m a wine fan, and they had a nice list. Partner indicated that my counterpart with client also liked wine and that we should order a few bottles. Partners and CEO were drinking scotch. When we got the tab it was $17,000. I was of course the only one surprised by this. It was with it too since we probably billed the client that within the first week, but darn.
Image source: Soup_Kitchen
#31
My dad and I bought Pokemon cards. Granted it was his business.
Image source: Woodsy2575
#32
Buy lunch at Hooters for his employee because he wanted to be friends with him. He had only recently gotten the card back because it was taken away after his last purchase of an $80 magic kit.
Image source: MyFirstOtherAccount
#33
I rented a lamborghini with mine, but I did not expense it to the company so it’s fine (as long as I paid the bill by end of month which I did)
I just wanted to cross that off my bucket list, and I don’t have any Credit cards of my own so I took the opportunity.
Image source: anon
#34
Buy a water pic to water their plants.
Image source: mymomhasanxietytoday
#35
Was with the company for 6 months and was given a company card. Within a month he got caught using it for personal stuff. Groceries. Gas. Restaurants. Movies.
When he got caught he tried blaming it on a gambling problems. They ended up keeping him around another few months until he got caught doing the same stuff.
Image source: anon
#36
Buying a Toblerone and got caught.
Image source: anon
#37
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.
Image source: notasushifan
#38
A few years ago my boss (at the time) sent me with the company card to buy him a calculator.
I asked no questions and promptly returned with said device…only to watch him open up Microsoft Excel and “finally be able to finish” his Totals column.
Image source: onxk1020
#39
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.
Image source: DaddyJBird
#40
Epic all day mess ups at the pub during a ‘team meeting’ was supposed to be there 2 hours, 8 hours later and covered in someone else vomit with my tie wrapped round my head I stumbled back into the office. At the next Christmas party the boss head butted the supervisor who was responsible, he was a jerk anyway although the i felt bad for him as he was a alcoholic. Yeah the company is no more and still owe me 4K.
Image source: Symdj
#41
My old boss took me and a few co-workers out for a few drinks to celebrate my last day. Dropped about $5000 on the entire night.. about half of that at the strip club.
Image source: atworknotworking89
#42
I was 16 and got a corporate card for my first job as i was so excited i posted a snapchat of me and the card while some rap song about money was playing and you could see every number but i deleted it a little bit later. that’s probably why most jobs for 16 year olds don’t get corporate cards.
Image source: yungun
#43
About 5 years ago, it was my department’s turn to get the suite at an NBA game for a team my company sponsors. A new guy who was a nepotism hire took it upon himself to keep ordering drinks and food for everyone in the suite – about 15 people. We thought it was a nice, albeit ridiculously over-the-top gesture, but we just figured he wanted to make a good impression and suspected he came from money. The next day, an HR executive stormed onto our floor and had a closed-door meeting with him, and our entire department never got the suite again. That guy later turned out to be blowing the VP who hired him (who was also a guy, and married with 4 kids).
Image source: TheBlooDred
#44
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.
Image source: A_Booger_In_The_Hand
#45
Bought about $2500 in games on Steam.
Then tried to claim the card was stolen.
That worked out about as well as you would expect it to have worked out for him.
Image source: cerem86
#46
Big-time marketing exec that worked for us, brought in a ton of revenue and really well-liked.
We found like a $10k charge on his credit card for a night out at bars/strip clubs. Says it was an accident and he meant to use his personal card. He was coincidentally let go a short time later.
Image source: anon
#47
Sister used to work at a company that gave people like her company cards. She used to tell the story of how the cards got limited to about a thousand dollars (they used to be closer to five grand). A previous sales rep, who worked there years before, went to a major Vegas medical convention. His plan was to woo every big client he could. After his FIRST night, he had all but maxed out his card. He spent the money at a casino, a fancy steak house, and of course, lots of clubs. The boss got word and was pissed. The guy had to use his own credit card for the rest of the weekend. Afterwards, we walked into work Monday morning to get chewed out. As we walks in, he finds out that his boss got called by someone who ended up becoming a major client. Oddly enough it wasn’t one of the guys he took out for drinks. It was a guy he met on his last day, he had bought him a coffee. The Sales rep got chewed out, obviously, but he got a decent bonus for the sale. And the credit card policy changed cause of him.
Image source: Frankfusion
#48
I worked for Border’s bookstores for a long time. At one store a supervisor used the corporate card to buy a TON of expensive Christmas decorations. We were a new store and didn’t have any, so he had to buy EVERYTHING to decorate a very large store.
Which was fine, we did actually use them.
But then once they came down he was literally packing up, to take home, what he wanted. He was all “We couldn’t *possibly* use the same decor next year, so this is practically garbage now.” He went around to other staff and was like “Do you want some of this?” and luckily most other staff said no.
He couldn’t understand, even when he was being fired and escorted out of the building by corporate loss prevention, that this was stealing from the company.
…so I guess not technically a credit card misspending issue but it’s close enough.
Image source: heinleinfan
#49
A buddy of mine found out that his parents had this corporate credit card in 5th grade with basically unlimited money. He managed to spend about 20,000$ on online games such as Runescape and Habbo before his mother found out. You can imagine he was the coolest kid in class.
Image source: Reactorp
#50
My first job out of college was at the famous “Bell Labs”. It was absolutely the pinnacle of R&D labs in its day and to have a job there was a first-class ticket on the success train.
I was one of two newbies on my managers team. The other was, in my estimation, completely unqualified. Bell Labs was making a big effort to recruit women and, with this particular candidate, maybe too much of an effort. We were both ceremoniously handed our AT&T corporate credit cards and were given very careful instructions about what it could and couldn’t be used for.
Next Monday, I got to work and Shawna was nowhere to be found. A security guard arrived mid-morning and picked up the one or two things she had left on her desk. Later that day, we were “reminded” about credit card use policy but I didn’t hear the whole story for another couple of weeks. It seems Shawna decided that “corporate credit card” meant “time buy whatever I’ve always wanted”. Her first stop after getting the card was to buy a $10k fur coat. She went on quite a buying spree before Amex got suspicious and shut her down (this was the 80s, and processes were manual back then). Needless to day, my boss was pretty pissed off. Shawna never stepped foot on the premises again.
Image source: anon
#51
I spent close to $500 on an order of Roscoe’s chicken and waffles during an internship.
Image source: anon
#52
$45 per diem, buy the $200 wings and Dom Perignon at Hooters.
Image source: ryanzbt
#53
Payed $1000 for a several year old 32inch LCD TV…
I was the Resident Manager at a hotel and one sold out weekend the business center TV died. I offered to run down to my apartment and grab my LCD TV to get us through the event. After the weekend was over, the owner of the hotel was grateful I took the initiative on my own he told me I could either get a replacement TV for the business center, or give the hotel my old TV and buy a new one for myself. Told me to “just keep it under a grand” and sent me on my way with his card. Pretty big jump from a 32 to a 52 in a cramped one bedroom apartment lol.
Image source: -MY_NAME_IS_MUD-
#54
Christ this is something I did. I go to Vegas a few times a year for business. I sealed a big fantastic deal that would bring my company millions of dollars worth of revenue in a two year period. The President of the company told me to take the guys out on the town and have fun and do what ever you want and to put it all on the card. Mind you I was never given a limit as what I could spend on my corporate AMEX. Holy probably one of the best days of my life. I took us for a helicopter ride. Then I took us to a machine gun range. Out to fancy dinners then to the Spearmint Rhino where I bought all the guys I work with drinks, strippers and eventually high class hookers for the evening. We then brought the high class skanks to see Avicci at XS and it was a great time. I spent like $23,000 on the corporate card. 100% worth the chewing out I got when we got back from Vegas.
Image source: cdiairsoft
#55
Watching someone use a credit card linked to a specific Tribal entity for use in company vans only, to fill up a tribally-owned company car and their relatives personal car. They then accepted money from the relative (as the card gave deep discounts) out at the pumps at a tribally owned gas station in full view of employees and security cameras.
Image source: Pahaviche
#56
Once of my ex employees spent around $1200 in one month at the pot dispensary. I still can’t comprehend how he thought he was going to get away with it.
Image source: nobern
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