Calls to DWP Benefit Fraud Hotline Double

Mersey_2

Calls to the DWP Benefit Fraud Hotline in Spain have doubled since 2010.


Over £5m has been recovered and the team in Madrid has handled over 1,300 cases in Spain and the Canary Islands, since Iain Duncan Smith opened the Madrid office.


900 55 44 40 www.dwp.gov.uk/benefit-thieves-spain

konark

How can you sign on if you live in Spain?

Robbie64

konark wrote: »

How can you sign on if you live in Spain?

You can, for up to three months, if eligible for contributions JSA and you are living in the EU (not just Spain) to actively seek work but I guess the fraud hotline is to target people on other benefits and not JSA.

The signing on bit for JSA when abroad is done in whatever Jobcentre Plus offices equivalent that country has. The country you are in pays you and then claims it back from the DWP. It works the other way around too with people from the EU able to come here and claim their equivalent of contributory JSA for up to three months. The DWP pays it and is then reimbursed from the relevant national government.

Mersey_2

All true. I think the DWP were targeting fraudulent Pension Credit, War Widows' Bereavement and so on in Spain, as well as HB & CTB, where council and social tenants were living in Spain and subletting their UK properties. There were also a few bogus/ghost claims for state pension (and the resultant winter fuel etc), ie claiming for people who had died.

tea-bag

When I was last in Spain visiting my mum I was shocked by the amount of motorbility cars over there! Lots of DLA over there.

Mersey_2

Ha well ITV's Benidorm is amusing as many of us know families like that.