The recent case of a Penn State employee who allegedly misused his purchasing card by attempting to charge $18,000 to various stores was a rarity encountered by the university purchasing card system, Director of Procurement Services Jim Dunlop said.

"We do feel the [security] controls we had in place were able to alert us when this situation happened. ... There will be no financial loss for Penn State," he said.

Penn State computer specialist Adam Fogelsanger was charged Feb. 8 by Penn State University Police for allegedly attempting to charge $18,000 to a Penn State-authorized credit card, University Police supervisor Dwight Smith said. Fogelsanger was allegedly successful in making purchases of $9,542, Smith said.

Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said Fogelsanger was issued the card for "departmental use."

Director of Purchasing Services Joyce Haney said each university department evaluates which employees will receive purchasing cards.

Dunlop said there are about 5,000 purchasing cards throughout various departments at Penn State. He added that he "didn't see any impending changes" made to the university credit card system as a result of Fogelsanger's alleged actions.

Dunlop said because of current security control methods, there have been very few problems with unauthorized purchases.

"The number of problems we've had [with purchasing cards] are extremely small," he said. "The worst we've had is a few times when people have lost cards ... but they weren't improperly used."

Haney said that there are multiple security restrictions in place for the purchasing cards, including a transaction limit and a cycle limit.

The transaction limit for each purchase is $2,000 and the 30-day cycle limit is $18,000, Haney said. But she added that the $2,000 transaction limit and $18,000 cycle limits are the highest level of purchasing cards and most purchasing cards have lower spending limits.

Each department has a process in which charges from the purchasing cards are compared to receipts from employees, Haney said.

"We have reconcilers. When the card holder uses the card, they turn in their receipt to the reconcilers," she said. "They make sure it is a legitimate charge. ... We call that a reconciliation process." If a transaction is not reconciled within 30 days, "it is flagged for review at a higher level," Haney said.

The cards are also approved for certain "merchant category codes," which classify and restrict different types of businesses, such as business supply stores, Dunlop said.

Haney said that PNC Bank and Visa, which issue the cards, have fraud detection programs that detect purchases from restricted merchant codes.

"If the bank saw there were two or three denials in a row, that would set off flags in the computer system," Haney said.

Dunlop said the types of purchases that Fogelsanger allegedly made did not have the restricted codes. "The charges he made were charges that could be legitimate to the university," he said. "Once that information got back to the reconciler after Christmas break, they could see that this person was not on university travel." Haney said that in addition to the security in each department, the Penn State Internal Audit department audits the card information.