Would you report them?

ska_lover

OP I think, as someone suggested earlier, there may well be a reason your friend told you here. I think she wants them 'grassed up', but doesn't want to be the one to do it.

If a close family member of mine was doing it, although I would loose total respect for them, I honestly think I would struggle to get them into so much trouble. But having said that, I wouldn't tell other people either, the fewer people who knew, the better I assume in these situations. Its a difficult one with family though, and I suspect most people wouldn't grass family up. If it was someone outside my family circle I would grass them up without hesitation.

Honestly though, from what I have seen, I don't think a lot of people do it out of necessity, as in they do not have enough to feed their families, some people do it out of pure greed and laziness and that obviously gets everyone goat up including me

meritaten

this is difficult as I did report someone once.
But, not family - I couldn't report family but would tell them what I thought of them. Its stealing pure and simple!

I would have to think hard about this - if they were in dire straights and doing it out of desperation - then no I wouldn't. If it was greed, then perhaps I would tip someone off and hope they reported them.

lori64

techspec wrote: »

Thats true - but poor people often do it to survive - politicians do it cos they have no morals and are pure greedy arrogant stuck up pathetic scum.

Too true!!

Unless you have had to EXIST on benefits, then you have no idea how hard it is to get by on benefits in this capitalistic, materialistic society. Where it's impossible to get by on £71 jsa a week. Rising energy prices, food prices etc, etc..............
I'm sick to death off hearing benefit claimants being tarred with the same brush time and again...fags, booze, Jeremy Kyle watchers...blah blah..

Try existing on benefits for a long period off time, then tell me if you had the chance off extra cash, you wouldn't take it!! Anyone skint, desperate and without work reading this will get exactly how tough it is to just get through one day to the next.
It might not be right, but desperate people take desperate measures.

Oh, and I'm not unemployed, I'm a student, but know only too well long term unemployment!

FatVonD

lori64 wrote: »

Too true!!

Unless you have had to EXIST on benefits, then you have no idea how hard it is to get by on benefits in this capitalistic, materialistic society. Where it's impossible to get by on £71 jsa a week. Rising energy prices, food prices etc, etc..............
I'm sick to death off hearing benefit claimants being tarred with the same brush time and again...fags, booze, Jeremy Kyle watchers...blah blah..

Try existing on benefits for a long period off time, then tell me if you had the chance off extra cash, you wouldn't take it!! Anyone skint, desperate and without work reading this will get exactly how tough it is to just get through one day to the next.
It might not be right, but desperate people take desperate measures.

Oh, and I'm not unemployed, I'm a student, but know only too well long term unemployment!

You've totally missed the point. Nobody is criticizing people that are on benefits because they are entitled to them. The issue is about benefit CHEATS who are claiming benefits they aren't entitled to on top of an income.

If I understand correctly, (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong because the OP's post is very confusing), the OP's friend's parent's partner is claiming housing benefit for a home they don't live in and then renting it out and making an income from it. Surely you don't condone that?

FatVonD

j.e.j. wrote: »

If I've understood it right:

Parent's partner is claiming Housing Benefit to pay the 'rent' in the house that officially the parent no longer lives in.

But in reality the parent IS living there and is getting the Housing Benefit money, and they are living together as a couple?

Or it could be as JEJ has interpreted it which is equally as wrong.

paulineb_2

lori64 wrote: »

Too true!!

Unless you have had to EXIST on benefits, then you have no idea how hard it is to get by on benefits in this capitalistic, materialistic society. Where it's impossible to get by on £71 jsa a week. Rising energy prices, food prices etc, etc..............
I'm sick to death off hearing benefit claimants being tarred with the same brush time and again...fags, booze, Jeremy Kyle watchers...blah blah..

Try existing on benefits for a long period off time, then tell me if you had the chance off extra cash, you wouldn't take it!! Anyone skint, desperate and without work reading this will get exactly how tough it is to just get through one day to the next.
It might not be right, but desperate people take desperate measures.

Oh, and I'm not unemployed, I'm a student, but know only too well long term unemployment!

I wouldnt take it. Ive been in situations more than once where Ive signed on and declared every single penny of a part time job because its not worth the risk of being reported and investigated.

I know someone who signed on for years and made £100 a week cash in hand working in a takeaway.

And thats entirely up to them. But get caught, it affects not just your benefit but your housing benefit as well. For me, really not worth it.

And Im also sick of people getting tarred with the same brush, booze, fags, bingo, jeremy kyle. I dont get JSA just now but I do get some housing benefit but every penny I make is declared.

I also know people who are self employed, as I am and who fiddle their books but you see their facebook statuses going on about their tax paying for people on benefits treats. A Tory MP called people who sign on bottom feeding scum recently. Says it all to me.

Lots of people work on the side, some will get caught, some wont, it would be ridiculous to think that everyone who claims benefits does it by the book and as a single person myself, I got 71 pounds a week JSA, no extras.

There are neighbours of mine who dont live in their homes and get housing benefit and housing and the benefits teams know. One woman in my block of flats lived with her partner in another flat in this block, meanwhile her flat was a party flat, her son had his own flat but he and the daughter used to live there as well, along with half of the estate at times. But no one did anything to shut the flat down.

Lots of people claim money they arent entitled to and sometimes even when its reported it seems no one really can be bothered doing anything about it.

I also know people who live together but claim to live apart as they'll get more in benefits. People arent often discreet about the way they live.

And no, its not easy. But Id rather live knowing theres not going to be an investigation into what Im doing, or the chance of it, because it only takes one person to report you and you potentially face paying back a lot of money, not just benefit, but housing benefit as well

Some people also dont exist on benefits, some actually do very well the fact that the 26 grand benefit cap was brought in would back that up.

FatVonD

Arose wrote: »

It's none of my business what other people do. As long as they aren't harming anyone, then I'm not interested. I don't see why going out of your way to report someone for claiming benefits is beneficial to you or the other person. Some people do it because they are struggling to survive.

BIB, but they ARE harming someone, aren't they?

If benefit cheats weren't defrauding 1.2billion per year (and that's just the ones they know about) perhaps there would be enough in the pot to increase the old age pension to a liveable amount.

Maybe if there were enough in the pot a whole generation of women wouldn't have had their pensionable age increased by 6 years. Perhaps all the people that do actually work might not have to all work an extra year before they can retire.

Perhaps there might be enough in the pot to provide more of a safety net for people like me (newly unemployed) who, despite working for 34 years am not entitled to anything more than JSA as I've earned too much while people who've never worked a day in their life are in receipt of up to £500 per week.

Perhaps the disabled people who have committed suicide because they were wrongly declared fit to work would never have been in that situation if people weren't fraudulently claiming disability benefit provoking a need for assessment.

I also don't buy the argument that because unclaimed benefits are at a higher amount than (discovered) benefit fraud then it's all okay because the two cancel each other out. By that reasoning there is .1 billion going spare, can I help myself to that, please because I'd quite like it? And while we're about it can I have all the money left by people who die intestate because I'd quite like that too.

Errata

Benefit fraudsters and their enablers are the lowest of the low.

ska_lover

Errata wrote: »

Benefit fraudsters and their enablers are the lowest of the low.

I agree, but would you turn in your parents, if you knew they were doing it? I do not believe I could do that. Its easy to say without actually being in that situation though, I believe - and throw family into any equation and then you have emotion involved

The rest of us who are working hard are always going to look down our noses at benefit fraudsters, and rightly so, we are working are behinds off, so they have an easy ride. What is wrong with them getting off their jacksy and getting a job, I do not know..

I don't buy the argument that someone said earlier about doing it out of necessity, sorry, but that is carp, a lot of them do it out of greed, cos they can get away with it - this is not a third world country, although I do realise how harsh that sounds

Morglin

Unless it involved kids, I have to say that I wouldn't report anybody for anything.

Everyone has to live by their own standards, and I'm not their conscience - I couldn't are less what other people are doing. Not my business.

Curtain twitchers can also do what they like, as far as I'm concerned, as I'd just like to have the time and energy to worry about what the neighbours are doing!

The only thing I think is those that want report things should have the courage to give their own details, sneaking about anonymously says more about the 'reporter' than the 'accused'.

Lin