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Ratting on benefit cheats
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The_mangler wrote: »I refer you to the link I have posted three times now:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/press-releases/2010/oct-2010/dwp138-10-181010.shtml
For the hard of understanding, the important points are at the bottom of that page, entitled notes to editors. This comes from the DWP themselves. But I guess that still wont be enough for some people.
So to use those figures should an estimated £1.5 BILLION (that is a thousand million or £1500,000,000) of fraudulent claims just be ignored in case someone gets upset about being asked to prove their eligibility? This figure of fraud equates to a cost of approx £38 per taxpayer per year, rather more than the 62p a year that you were complaining about the Royal family costing.
ETA: I forgot about the extra half a billion and only based my figures on a mere billion. So the actual sum that each taxpayer is forking out a year for FRAUDULENT claims rises to £57 a year.That is on an estimated 26million taxpayers0 -
No but to say we all know someone who is defrauding the DWP is frankly BS.I don't know if I'm getting better or just used to the pain.
Bipolar for all0 -
I do know at least two (and possibly three) people who are committing Benefit fraud.
One is claiming JSA and not declaring the income from three lodgers. She has been doing this for at least three years. She told me this herself and justified it by saying she couldm't afford to live on the JSA alone. I did put it to her that she might stop claiming JSA and live on the lodgers' rents, but she then said that if she did this she would lose her free prescriptions, dental treatment etc. She is still claiming JSA (or at least she was the last time I saw her in November).
Another person I know told me his daughter was claiming as a single parent, despite living with a long-term partner. In this case I pointed out that she was not in fact single and shouldn't really be claiming as such. The person who told me may not have realised that co-habiting couples were treated the same as married ones as he is not very au fait with such things. I do not know whether the daughter is still claiming.
I did not report either of these people. I don't quite know why I didn't. I suppose I felt I had pointed out that what they were doing was wrong and now the ball was in their court. But that might just be a cop out. If I saw someone stealing my neighbour's television I would report them, and Benefit fraud is theft as much as this is.
(retreats to quiet corner to examine conscience).(AKA HRH_MUngo)
Member #10 of £2 savers club
Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton0 -
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holidaysforme wrote: »Indeed! Also make the message as simple as possible bearing in mind the limitations of it's readers:D
Which erudite newspaper do you subscribe to?0 -
yes, its all about propaganda.
Sometimes, I wonder, if the powers that be, wether they labour or the coallition, use mein-kampf as their textbook for policy on propaganda.
Hitler himself, summed up how propaganda should work, and it is just as relavent to todays benefit propaganda as it was to his use back then.
(src)
Sorry Cit, but I have to be the first to shout "Godwin's" on this one.The greater danger, for most of us, lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark0 -
Here's an article in the Guardian where the journalist reports on DWP employees who investigate suspected benefit claims. Some of the fraud team are actually sympathetic to the fraudsters - Staff admit that a large proportion of people who commit fraud are not motivated by greed, but do it because they are struggling.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/01/benefits-fraud-investigators?0 -
I've known a couple of relatives who are benefit cheats. One sublet out his housing association flat and worked cash in hand. Another claimed benefits and worked cash in hand ("not worth paying tax 'cos the government takes half me money"). In both instances, they were vulnerable in some way - one an alcoholic, the other went through the state care system, their lives were chaotic. I know their values are completely corrupt - they'd be the first to see it as victimless and crow about how they got one over on the system - but there is little to envy in their otherwise empty directionless lives.
I also studied at University with a bunch of fellow students who all claimed housing benefit and unemployment benefit for their entire degrees and some of them even claimed from the University hardship fund.0 -
Does that really happen, the DWP gets 1 phone call and the person who is accused has all their benefits cut off? Is it that simple, or is there more to it?0
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Does that really happen, the DWP gets 1 phone call and the person who is accused has all their benefits cut off? Is it that simple, or is there more to it?
I too find that difficult to believe.(AKA HRH_MUngo)
Member #10 of £2 savers club
Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton0
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