Would you report someone you knew for benefit fraud?

Oopsadaisy

dacouch wrote: »

Apart from the greed aspect a lot of people who have "jobs" that are not legal including drug dealers, escorts etc etc often claim benefits as it keeps them off the radar. If they do not claim then they run the chance of the taxman asking how they survive with no income and investigating them.

thats why most of them own a tanning shop.......zero outgoings [apart from a bit of leccy] and then declare all your drug/sex income as tanning income...hey presto, clean money!!!

qetu1357

dacouch wrote: »

Apart from the greed aspect a lot of people who have "jobs" that are not legal including drug dealers, escorts etc etc often claim benefits as it keeps them off the radar. If they do not claim then they run the chance of the taxman asking how they survive with no income and investigating them.

Good point.

Obviously a good way to help stop crime would be to abolish cash and make everyone pay for things by cards and make everyone register their cards and bank accounts with the inland revenue.

Then the government could work out who was spending more than they were earning/getting in benefits.

Oopsadaisy

janninew wrote: »

....some on here say that all benefits stop whilst an investigation takes place.

If they do investigate and she is doing nothing wrong, where is the problem?

They are wrong.....tipoffs are risk assessed and then allocated. Then a range of interventions can be actioned...eg call for normal review interview, ask to fill in form again, telecon, data matching, right thru to hidden camera surveillance, tailing, etc

I agree.....no harm done.

janninew

Oopsadaisy wrote: »

They are wrong.....tipoffs are risk assessed and then allocated. Then a range of interventions can be actioned...eg call for normal review interview, ask to fill in form again, telecon, data matching, right thru to hidden camera surveillance, tailing, etc

I agree.....no harm done.

That's interesting to know. Some people on here just being dramatic then!

Oopsadaisy

janninew wrote: »

Some people on here just being dramatic then!

On here.........some people drama queens???????? No, surely not.

Malory

burtons wrote: »

She has 2 kids and is claiming as a single person but her boyfriend lives with her and he is on good money. Now his wage is more a week than all my money put together from my wage my working tax credit and child tax credit. She gets all her rent and council tax paid and she is down the school saying she never goes out or never got any money, now she goes out every weekend and when she has bought something new all her friends knows about it.

I'm quite curious how the OP knows all this.

My close friends do not know how much I earn, where all my income comes from or how much I pay for Council Tax. (I am not on benefits, BTW.) I don't get to see their payslips, either.

Does the OP see this woman's bank account statement? How does she know who is paying for the things this woman has?

She is either making assumptions or she is either (pretending to be) very close friends with this woman, in which case it would be very coldhearted and hypocritical to report her. (As someone else said, why should her children suffer for her mistake?)

As someone else said, you are entitled to work a certain amount of hours and still get benefits. My husband employs someone who is getting DLA. DH reports this person's earnings to the DWP; it is all legal.

If you are going to talk about slippery slopes, what about the slippery slope of people spying on their neighbours and reporting them for every minor incident because 1) they don't get along with their neighbours or 2) they get a nice little reward.

Like Stalinist Russia.

I am bothered more by the idea of not being able to trust my own neighbours than the idea of some woman getting some extra benefit money.

The_mangler

We were the target of a malicious report of alleged benefit fraud - since disproved. However, the whole process led to my husband being triggered into a psychotic state, all of our money being stopped for 8 weeks and living off credit cards. Since our money was re started, obviously nobody will pay the extra credit card interest amassed due to someone's jealousy. I had to leave the work I was doing to be at home with my husband, putting us both firmly back on benefits, the increase in extra care my husband needs must cost more than before, plus the cost of an investigation means the public purse is well out of pocket. It took 8 months to sort out but my husband is still paying the price, the extra anti-psychotic medication he was put on has led to high cholesterol and diabetes, therefore more cost to the taxpayer, more strain on NHS resources. And all because of someone's jealousy that convinced them we were on the fiddle. People who jump in without knowing all the facts make me sick. There is a huge price to pay when people are reported wrongly, it isnt so simple as saying if you have nothing to fear then why worry. My family are still paying the price 8 months on though we were found innocent in it all. I would be the first person to complain about benefit fraud but I will have to be 100% sure of it before I put another innocent family through what we are still going through.

janninew

Malory wrote: »

I'm quite curious how the OP knows all this.

My close friends do not know how much I earn, where all my income comes from or how much I pay for Council Tax. (I am not on benefits, BTW.) I don't get to see their payslips, either.

Does the OP see this woman's bank account statement? How does she know who is paying for the things this woman has?

She is either making assumptions or she is either (pretending to be) very close friends with this woman, in which case it would be very coldhearted and hypocritical to report her. (As someone else said, why should her children suffer for her mistake?)

As someone else said, you are entitled to work a certain amount of hours and still get benefits. My husband employs someone who is getting DLA. DH reports this person's earnings to the DWP; it is all legal.

If you are going to talk about slippery slopes, what about the slippery slope of people spying on their neighbours and reporting them for every minor incident because 1) they don't get along with their neighbours or 2) they get a nice little reward.

Like Stalinist Russia.

I am bothered more by the idea of not being able to trust my own neighbours than the idea of some woman getting some extra benefit money.

Does having children give you a free passport to commit crimes then? Or just stealing? Why wasn't she thinking about her children? Can everybody with children start claiming what they aren't entitled to?

Equaliser123

pimento wrote: »

I don't think it's acceptable but I wouldn't dob my neighbour in if I thought s/he was doing it. I might be minded to make a phone call if I knew a Hedge Fund Manager evading his taxes though.

.

Why should the job of the person be relevant as to whether to report an offence?

If I saw a crime committed, I wouldn't ask the perpetrator his/her occupation prior to calling the authorities.

AsknAnswer2

Not would I, but rather have I...

Yes, on more than one occasion.

Did anything come of my reports? Yes, on every occasion.

Would I do it again? Yes.

Have I ever been on the receiving end? Yes, and no it isn't a nice feeling but as I had not committed any crime and declared everything to the penny, little came of it. Other that some of my time wasting and a bit of stress whilst I racked my brains trying to think if there was anything I perhaps hadn't declared.

I will say however that I've never reported anyone lightly or on a whim. I've seen pretty solid evidence with my own eyes before I reported anyone.