Which example best illustrates a mischaracterized reimbursement expense scheme?

• A. An employee alters a receipt to reflect a higher cost than what the employee actually paid and submits it for reimbursement.
• B. An employee who travels frequently on business submits receipts from a hotel stay during a family vacation as a business expense.
• C. An employee produces a fictitious receipt and includes it with an expense report.
• D. An employee submits a receipt for an item in one expense report and an email confirmation for the same item in the next period's expense report.

Answer: (C)

Mischaracterizing a reimbursement expense scheme means presenting an expense in a way that misstates what it actually is or that the expense doesn’t exist at all in order to get reimbursed. The clearest example is producing a fictitious receipt and including it with an expense report. A fake receipt asserts that a real purchase occurred when it did not, which directly misrepresents both the nature and the validity of the expense and is a blatant attempt to fabricate reimbursement. The other scenarios involve deception about cost, or about the purpose of a legitimate expense, or duplicating claims across periods, which are fraudulent as well but do not demonstrate mischaracterization as directly as fabricating a receipt does.