Off the top of the Overdrive Radio podcast this week is the voice of fuel-payments provider Wex's Vice President of Global Anti-Financial Crimes William Fitzgerald, laying out a 1 in 12,000 transaction rate for detection of fraud over the company's entire fuel-payments network. That is, 1 in every 12,000 purchases are flagged as suspiscious, potentially fraudulent, and blocked in automated fashion among its millions upon millions of fuel transactions facilitated annually.
Translate that incidence to the roughly 350,000 fuel transactions National Association of Small Trucking Companies President David Owen knows move through the association’s own Quality Plus fuel network any given month, and that’s right at 30 transactions being held up by the system. William Fitzgerald was speaking at NASTC's annual conference to outline the evolving landscape of fuel fraud/theft for attendees and showcase tools within Wex's (and some other card providers') networks that are increasingly successful in helping carriers of all shapes and sizes eliminate fraud's impact. Along the way, too, the company's been able to reduce the rate of so-called "false positives," legimate fuel purchases held up by the card provider's systems. Fitzgerald's well aware such hold-ups can be particularly annoying, and unproductive. Illustrating the huge financial impact of stolen fuel, though, he asked this hypothetical question to a room of NASTC conference attendees:
"What would be an acceptable false-positive rate in your minds?" he asked. "How many good transactions would you be OK with me stopping to prevent a bad one?"
The goal is zero false positves, of course, as Wex and other card providers calibrate a variety of techs operating in the network's background to get there, in addition to more human-focused efforts aimed at education to prevent account takeovers and the like that can bring the biggest hits to a fuel buyer’s bottom line. Results from ongoing efforts at Wex in particular have been good in recent months, he said. "We've got overall, over the last 10 months, a 25% reduction in losses, a 32% reduction in false positives," and a big increase in detection, too, he said.
Those results he attributed largely to technical innovations in company’s network, some described in part in a recent paper authored by the company you'll find at this link: https://www.wexinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WEX-Closed-Loop-Fleet-Card-White-Paper.pdf
But the human element in fraud prevention might be the biggest factor any size carrier can address to make the most gains in preventing losses, empowering themselves through self-education and passing that on to team members for those of you with more than just a single truck under your management. "We've seen the most yield" in fraud prevention, he said, "with education and empowerment."
Fitzgerald described efforts of Wex to illustrate the kinds of schemes that might result in infiltration of its own backend, including simulated phishing attacks through targeted fake emails designed to get a user to provide access to their login data with a goal of compromising accounts. Wex sends such emails to its own employees on occasion to lure them in, thus serving an educational purpose in awareness. Their most "successful" such an effort? An offer of "free Taylor Swift tickets. Everybody clicked on that," Fitzgerald said.
In the podcast, track through Fitzgerald's entire NASTC talk, tracking through those backend upgrades but also plenty more you can do to work with the company's team and tools in its system, like its SecureFuel solution, to prevent fuel theft. Likewise, should the worst, to work with law enforcement to apprehend the thieves.
Mentioned in the podcast:
**'Personal cyber hygiene' in age of social engineering hacks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15755615
**More from NASTC's conference on insurance, ELD data: https://overdriveonline.com/15770374
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Off the top of the Overdrive Radio podcast this week is the voice of fuel-payments provider Wex's Vice President of Global Anti-Financial Crimes William Fitzgerald, laying out a 1 in 12,000 transaction rate for detection of fraud over the company's entire fuel-payments network. That is, 1 in every 12,000 purchases are flagged as suspiscious, potentially fraudulent, and blocked in automated fashion among its millions upon millions of fuel transactions facilitated annually.
Translate that incidence to the roughly 350,000 fuel transactions National Association of Small Trucking Companies President David Owen knows move through the association’s own Quality Plus fuel network any given month, and that’s right at 30 transactions being held up by the system. William Fitzgerald was speaking at NASTC's annual conference to outline the evolving landscape of fuel fraud/theft for attendees and showcase tools within Wex's (and some other card providers') networks that are increasingly successful in helping carriers of all shapes and sizes eliminate fraud's impact. Along the way, too, the company's been able to reduce the rate of so-called "false positives," legimate fuel purchases held up by the card provider's systems. Fitzgerald's well aware such hold-ups can be particularly annoying, and unproductive. Illustrating the huge financial impact of stolen fuel, though, he asked this hypothetical question to a room of NASTC conference attendees:
"What would be an acceptable false-positive rate in your minds?" he asked. "How many good transactions would you be OK with me stopping to prevent a bad one?"
The goal is zero false positves, of course, as Wex and other card providers calibrate a variety of techs operating in the network's background to get there, in addition to more human-focused efforts aimed at education to prevent account takeovers and the like that can bring the biggest hits to a fuel buyer’s bottom line. Results from ongoing efforts at Wex in particular have been good in recent months, he said. "We've got overall, over the last 10 months, a 25% reduction in losses, a 32% reduction in false positives," and a big increase in detection, too, he said.
Those results he attributed largely to technical innovations in company’s network, some described in part in a recent paper authored by the company you'll find at this link: https://www.wexinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WEX-Closed-Loop-Fleet-Card-White-Paper.pdf
But the human element in fraud prevention might be the biggest factor any size carrier can address to make the most gains in preventing losses, empowering themselves through self-education and passing that on to team members for those of you with more than just a single truck under your management. "We've seen the most yield" in fraud prevention, he said, "with education and empowerment."
Fitzgerald described efforts of Wex to illustrate the kinds of schemes that might result in infiltration of its own backend, including simulated phishing attacks through targeted fake emails designed to get a user to provide access to their login data with a goal of compromising accounts. Wex sends such emails to its own employees on occasion to lure them in, thus serving an educational purpose in awareness. Their most "successful" such an effort? An offer of "free Taylor Swift tickets. Everybody clicked on that," Fitzgerald said.
In the podcast, track through Fitzgerald's entire NASTC talk, tracking through those backend upgrades but also plenty more you can do to work with the company's team and tools in its system, like its SecureFuel solution, to prevent fuel theft. Likewise, should the worst, to work with law enforcement to apprehend the thieves.
Mentioned in the podcast:
**'Personal cyber hygiene' in age of social engineering hacks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15755615
**More from NASTC's conference on insurance, ELD data: https://overdriveonline.com/15770374
'Be the best': Lofty goals, success in execution mark owner-op John Treadway's long career
Overdrive Radio
28 minutes 12 seconds
1 month ago
'Be the best': Lofty goals, success in execution mark owner-op John Treadway's long career
"Be on-time, put out the extra effort. ... No matter what you're going to be in life, be the best."
--Owner-operator John Treadway on his motivation through the years
Raised to “be the best” at whatever he did, owner-operator John Treadway is clearly working hard to achieve that lofty goal with his one-truck business. It's a two-truck business, actually, with Treadway trucking with his own authority mostly in a stunningly beautiful 1998 Peterbilt 379 he calls "Teal Appeal," but with a 2006-model Pete kept as a spare to run in winter, and as a failsafe to serve his central customer. Treadway was Overdrive's Trucker of the Month for September, featured in this story by Senior Editor Matt Cole, whose long talk with Treadway makes up the bulk of this week's podcast: https://overdriveonline.com/15767883
Owner-operator John Treadway hauls flowers year-round for a greenhouse operation near his base in Kokomo, Indiana, with his Tway (prounced TEE-Way) Rose Transport, now with authority for going on a decade after some decades more leased to other companies. His story stretches back to his start trucking with the 1990 purchase of a 1985 Kenworth Liberty Edition cabover he used to haul grain with his older brother, eventually moving on to pull flatbeds and a variety of other trailers. It’s reefer work these days for the flower operation, and since we saw his tractor at MATS early this year he’s put work into a 2017 Great Dane reefer to match the lines and colors of "Teal Appeal" 1998 Pete, as you’ll hear in the podcast today.
Yet so much of Treadway’s approach to trucking he traces to the time before he ever held a steering wheel, his life built in the business on top of those be-the-best values instilled at an early age along with admiration of truck drivers whose names he may have never known but from whom he garnered examples to which to aspire. Along with business brass tacks he keeps early lessons learned ever at the front his mind about what it takes to build success as a one-truck owner, and to have a little fun along the way.
"One of my good friends told me a long, long time ago, 'To be an owner-operator, that's a 364-day-a year job,'" Treadway said. "You're driving through the day, you're hauling the loads, but it doesn't stop. The weekend comes, and you've got repairs to do, and then on top of that if you want to add a piece of chrome or something, you have to try to fit all that in. There's just a grind to it. You've just gotta keep grinding, and keep moving forward."
Read about all of our 2025 Truckers of the Month, contenders for the annual prize of a Bostrom seat from Trucker of the Year sponsor Commercial Vehicle Group and a custom replica of the winner's tractor: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year
Also in the podcast:
Shout to Overdrive's Small Fleet Champs announced Thursday, October 23, at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference in Nashville with fellow finalists on hand with the hundreds assembled for the opening night dinner and program: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15770012/overdrives-2025-small-fleet-champs-tfx-oberman-come-out-on-top
Keep tuned for a roundtable talk with all in attendance conducted just ahead of the event in a near-future Overdrive Radio edition. No shortage of wisdom shared amongst this group, no doubt.
Overdrive Radio
Off the top of the Overdrive Radio podcast this week is the voice of fuel-payments provider Wex's Vice President of Global Anti-Financial Crimes William Fitzgerald, laying out a 1 in 12,000 transaction rate for detection of fraud over the company's entire fuel-payments network. That is, 1 in every 12,000 purchases are flagged as suspiscious, potentially fraudulent, and blocked in automated fashion among its millions upon millions of fuel transactions facilitated annually.
Translate that incidence to the roughly 350,000 fuel transactions National Association of Small Trucking Companies President David Owen knows move through the association’s own Quality Plus fuel network any given month, and that’s right at 30 transactions being held up by the system. William Fitzgerald was speaking at NASTC's annual conference to outline the evolving landscape of fuel fraud/theft for attendees and showcase tools within Wex's (and some other card providers') networks that are increasingly successful in helping carriers of all shapes and sizes eliminate fraud's impact. Along the way, too, the company's been able to reduce the rate of so-called "false positives," legimate fuel purchases held up by the card provider's systems. Fitzgerald's well aware such hold-ups can be particularly annoying, and unproductive. Illustrating the huge financial impact of stolen fuel, though, he asked this hypothetical question to a room of NASTC conference attendees:
"What would be an acceptable false-positive rate in your minds?" he asked. "How many good transactions would you be OK with me stopping to prevent a bad one?"
The goal is zero false positves, of course, as Wex and other card providers calibrate a variety of techs operating in the network's background to get there, in addition to more human-focused efforts aimed at education to prevent account takeovers and the like that can bring the biggest hits to a fuel buyer’s bottom line. Results from ongoing efforts at Wex in particular have been good in recent months, he said. "We've got overall, over the last 10 months, a 25% reduction in losses, a 32% reduction in false positives," and a big increase in detection, too, he said.
Those results he attributed largely to technical innovations in company’s network, some described in part in a recent paper authored by the company you'll find at this link: https://www.wexinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WEX-Closed-Loop-Fleet-Card-White-Paper.pdf
But the human element in fraud prevention might be the biggest factor any size carrier can address to make the most gains in preventing losses, empowering themselves through self-education and passing that on to team members for those of you with more than just a single truck under your management. "We've seen the most yield" in fraud prevention, he said, "with education and empowerment."
Fitzgerald described efforts of Wex to illustrate the kinds of schemes that might result in infiltration of its own backend, including simulated phishing attacks through targeted fake emails designed to get a user to provide access to their login data with a goal of compromising accounts. Wex sends such emails to its own employees on occasion to lure them in, thus serving an educational purpose in awareness. Their most "successful" such an effort? An offer of "free Taylor Swift tickets. Everybody clicked on that," Fitzgerald said.
In the podcast, track through Fitzgerald's entire NASTC talk, tracking through those backend upgrades but also plenty more you can do to work with the company's team and tools in its system, like its SecureFuel solution, to prevent fuel theft. Likewise, should the worst, to work with law enforcement to apprehend the thieves.
Mentioned in the podcast:
**'Personal cyber hygiene' in age of social engineering hacks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15755615
**More from NASTC's conference on insurance, ELD data: https://overdriveonline.com/15770374
