Fleets lose $2.2m a year to fuel fraud—Geotab’s card stops it cold
Geotab has introduced a new fleet card that integrates vehicle telematics to combat rising diesel costs and unauthorized fuel purchases. The Geotab Fleet Card, developed in partnership with payment platform AtoB, uses real-time data to authorize transactions and direct drivers to lower-priced fuel stations, offering potential annual savings of thousands per truck.
Diesel prices in the U.S. have climbed sharply, with the national average reaching $6.382 per gallon for the week ending September 28, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This represents a 70% increase compared to the same period last year, when prices averaged $3.754 per gallon.
How the system prevents fraud and reduces costs: Geotab
The Geotab Fleet Card verifies each fuel purchase by cross-referencing the vehicle’s location, fuel tank capacity, and the merchant’s coordinates. If the truck is not at the fueling station or lacks sufficient tank space, the transaction is automatically declined. Drivers must unlock the card through the Geotab Drive app while parked at the merchant location, which also displays nearby fueling options and their prices.
For qualifying accounts, the system includes a fraud guarantee of up to $250,000, provided by AtoB. Geotab’s analysis of 419,000 diesel fill-ups across 660 U.S. fleets found that price differences for diesel could reach 77 cents per gallon within the same town. For a 75-gallon fill-up, this disparity could mean a $58 difference. However, fleets with fewer than 100 vehicles selected the cheaper fueling option only 17% of the time, missing potential savings of $24 per fill-up—or approximately $4,700 per truck annually.
Competitors adopt similar telematics-based solutions
Other companies are also merging telematics with fuel payment systems. In July, WEX launched SecureFuel, which combines fleet-card data with real-time vehicle information to detect and block unauthorized purchases. As a Geotab Premier Partner, WEX allows existing Geotab customers to integrate their vehicle data with SecureFuel for enhanced fraud prevention.
Samsara followed in August with its Fuel Command Center, which consolidates fuel spending, locations, driver behavior, and card controls. Through its partnership with Coast, Samsara can block transactions when the assigned vehicle is not present at the fueling station.
Geotab estimates that unauthorized fuel purchases could cost a 500-vehicle Class 8 fleet around $2.19 million annually, based on an assumed 7% fraud rate and annual fuel spending of $31.3 million. The company’s vice president of sales, Steven Berube, emphasized the urgency of cost-saving measures, stating, “With fuel costs rising across the U.S., fleets need practical ways to reduce what they spend at the pump.”
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