Employees working from home during the coronavirus pandemic claimed some outlandish expenses this year, including pricey exercise bikes, facelifts and private jets.
Emburse, an expense management software company, released a compilation Wednesday of some of the craziest expenses it has seen claimed this year, some of which were actually approved. That included $1,895, which was approved as a contribution for an employee's Peloton Bike under the explanation of “for health and wellness.” On the other hand, a $7,600 expense claim for a facelift was submitted under the category of “repairs and maintenance” but was rejected, despite the pressing need to look one’s best during a Zoom meeting.
Mikhael Felker is director of information security and risk management for Farmers Insurance. He is also an advisor for the Safe-T Executive Advisory Committee. In the past decade, he has taken on a number of information security roles including engineering, teaching, writing, research and management. His sector experience includes insurance, defense, healthcare, nonprofit/education and technology/Internet, seeing first-hand the variance in information security culture and program maturity. Felker received his M.S. in information security policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University and B.S. in computer science from UCLA. He has over 50-plus publications and has been a speaker for RSAC, CSA, ISSA, ISACA, ISC2 and OWASP events.
Scott T. Allen is an associate and litigation lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP.
Some expenses weren’t for working from home, but more about getting out of the house safely. An expense claim for a private jet charter costing over $20,000 was submitted and approved under the explanation of “required to limit COVID exposure for international shoots.” Another travel-related expense claim was $2,500 for a helicopter ride, which was not approved.
The $79 expense claim for a dog crate could perhaps be used for travel at some point when that's safer, but in these times it was more plausibly to provide "crate training [for] a new COVID puppy to not run into Zoom meetings."
Below is an infographic produced by Emburse showing this and several other head-scratching claims:
