Staff who feel underpaid or short-changed are more likely to exaggerate expense claims, according to research from an expense management company.

Workers who feel underpaid or short-changed by their employers are more likely to exaggerate expense claims, according to research from an expense management company.

The research from GlobalExpense suggests that exaggerating claims is seen as acceptable by almost one third of all adult workers, while a fifth admit to having done it themselves.

The situation in which most respondents (76 per cent) feel the practice to be justified is when the mileage rate allowed by an employer does not cover actual car and fuel costs.

Other situations believed to justify exaggerated expenses include a worker’s pay not having risen in line with inflation (40 per cent), slow reimbursement (29 per cent) and not being paid a fair salary (28 per cent).

David Vine, MD of GlobalExpense, comments, ‘The further the country falls into recession and people feel the pinch, the more employees are being tempted to fiddle their expenses.’

The survey finds that 59 per cent of employees in both London and Scotland added more than £5 to the last expense claim they exaggerated, compared with 51 per cent in the North of England. Workers in the South (excluding London) were the most restrained, with 37 per cent adding more than £5 to their claim form.