Fake beggar earns £23,000 a year

robin_banks

jamespir wrote: »

i couldnt beg even when i was homeless for 6 months i couldnt do it

Do you think there might have been a point in time where you might have done ?.

Generali

jamespir wrote: »

i couldnt beg even when i was homeless for 6 months i couldnt do it

I've hit some low points in my life in financial and other ways and I couldn't have sat in the street begging for change either.

lemonjelly

tomterm8 wrote: »

I don't think it is taxable income, but to get job seekers allowance you need to state that you are available for a job and actively seeking a job... and if you are begging all the time, you can't be using that time to seek a job.

So, yeah, it is fradulent.

What gets me about this is that begging isn't a very productive use of your time. I'm a magic hobbyest, but I know that a good sidewalk magic act can make £100 on a weekday, and £250 a day on bank holidays and weekends... and in addition, there are a lot of pro busking festivals that pay you hundreds of pounds a day just to turn up.

There are circle acts that can pull in £500 a day on the weekend.

Many of these people make much more money than me, when you take into account tax.

JSA is taxable income.
If claiming JSA, the jobcentre would have to be measuring how the claimant is actively seeking work. They have a number of tests to measure this.

So in a way, the arguement needs to be about how the jobcentre were monitoring his availability for & actively seeking work.

In my experience, his actions constitute fraud in that he had forms of income he did not disclose. I feel that isn't debateable. However what he was doing by day wasn't fraudulent. He could've begged everyday, then gone through job ads all night, filling in applications etc. That would fulfil seeking work.

Jennifer_Jane

Generali, I've also hit low spots having lived in a Country without much in the way of benefits and good terms of conditions. Nevertheless, because I was given some good educational background by my secondary modern, and secretarial skills, I have never found myself out of a job for long. My point being that, with some generally useful skills, a good educational background, and being fairly presentable, you should be able to find some work or other.

Personally, I would prefer to clean toilets than beg and, indeed, would find pride in doing a good job. I look on beggars as having made a career choice (and being on drugs/drink etc, would be included in that) and never give them anything. When I want to help the homeless, I prefer the Salvation Army who do real, useful work with people.

StevieJ

bendix wrote: »

When i lived in Thailand, the government tried to make it illegal to give money to beggars.

This was because the streets of Bangkok are full of beggars with babies, instead of dogs. These babies are sold by their parents in Cambodia and Myanmar to !!!!! gangs, who then hire them out to professional beggars who use them on the streets. In most cases, the babies are drugged so that they stay docile during the day.

Nice place :eek:

StevieJ

Heyman wrote: »

This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, and exactly why I don't think people here who condone 'polite' begging have been on the receiving end of it much.

One other point, when the shoppers have gone home and the clubbers have not yet emerged the city centre can feel like a spooky and foreboding place when mostly all that is left are you (and a few others) and the beggars.

Running_Horse

Generali wrote: »

Which beggars genuinely need the money in the UK? There is a welfare state paying for housing, health, education and providing a small amount for other basics. Most beggars are there because they have other problems, for example this claims 80% of beggars have a drink or drug problem.

So if you're addicted to drink or drugs, do you need the money? If you have the addiction I bet it feels an awful lot like you do and in some ways they are right - an alcoholic suddenly quitting alcohol risks death for example.

An alcoholic suddenly quitting alcohol is more likely to risk sobriety than death, which is why they don't tend to do it. By giving money to a "genuine" beggar you are keeping them in that self-destructive lifestyle. When the heroin addict dies of an overdose, all those well meaning people who gave him a couple of quid are complicit in his death. But at least they have a warm fuzzy feeling about themselves.

Generali

Running_Horse wrote: »

An alcoholic suddenly quitting alcohol is more likely to risk sobriety than death, which is why they don't tend to do it. By giving money to a "genuine" beggar you are keeping them in that self-destructive lifestyle. When the heroin addict dies of an overdose, all those well meaning people who gave him a couple of quid are complicit in his death. But at least they have a warm fuzzy feeling about themselves.

True. According to this bloke (link) 5% of people withdrawing from alcohol will get the DTs and about of third of them will die if it is untreated.

jamespir

robin_banks wrote: »

Do you think there might have been a point in time where you might have done ?.

possibly not

IveSeenTheLight

Heyman wrote: »

'A court heard yesterday how Daniel Terry, 31, dressed up as a tramp and raked in £50 on a weekday and up to £100 on weekends in Lincoln, whilst claiming £80 a week of incapacity benefits.With his £4,000-a-year benefits, the fake beggar made a total income of £27,000 - more than the average nurse, teacher or soldier.'

He's not the only one.
Some even by and sell shares online whilst working as a tramp