JSA, may have dug myself into a hole :(

appletea

I'm on JSA and a few months ago I made some money from selling some of my personal belongings on ebay, and that money went into my paypal. A few days ago I had a home visit for a "benefit review". The man asked to see my bank statements which I showed him. He also asked if I have any other savings, but I said no even though there is a bit of money in my Paypal as I felt they would try to implicate me in something for making money whilst on benefit (I know selling personal belongings is legal and I can prove it was that, but they would still give me trouble) which would be a lot of stress for me when I already have anxiety issues. In total my savings including the stuff in Paypal are below £6000, and if my total savings became over £6000 I would alert them. Could I get in trouble for not bringing up the stuff in paypal? If so what should I do now? Alerting the DWP of the money in Paypal after all this time will just seem suspect This is making me sick.

[Deleted User]

The basic thing is that you have less than £6000, I'm not sure how paypal works as I don't use it, but if its £ that is available to you I suspect you should have reported it. I stand to be corrected if this is wrong.

TELLIT01

Lying is always a risky strategy as there is always a risk of being found out. When asked about any other savings you should have told them about the Paypal account, as you now realise. In this instance there is actually no harm done if you have remained below £6k all the time. If you have a contact number for the person who did the home visit, I would call them and say that you forgot about the Paypal account and tell them how much is in it. As it's only a few days since the visit the worst that's likely to happen is that they will make it clear they aren't happy.

appletea

TELLIT01 wrote: »

Lying is always a risky strategy as there is always a risk of being found out. When asked about any other savings you should have told them about the Paypal account, as you now realise. In this instance there is actually no harm done if you have remained below £6k all the time. If you have a contact number for the person who did the home visit, I would call them and say that you forgot about the Paypal account and tell them how much is in it. As it's only a few days since the visit the worst that's likely to happen is that they will make it clear they aren't happy.

Surely they could easily slap me with an administrative penalty for failing to give correct information? I was also sent a form a few weeks ago asking how much money I have, and only wrote how much money was in the bank. My thinking is that there is no way for them to find out how much money I have in paypal unless I bring it up and thus give them a reason to implicate me in something so that they can meet their targets for penalizing claiments.

dippy3103

appletea wrote: »

Surely they could easily slap me with an administrative penalty for failing to give correct information? I was also sent a form a few weeks ago asking how much money I have, and only wrote how much money was in the bank. My thinking is that there is no way for them to find out how much money I have in paypal unless I bring it up and thus give them a reason to implicate me in something so that they can meet their targets for penalizing claiments.

I think you mean civil penalty. Have your savings gone over £6k? If so by how much and for how long?

An Ad Pen is only ever given as the result of a fraud investigation and is 50% of the overpayment (since April 2015) to be repaid on top.

appletea

dippy3103 wrote: »

I think you mean civil penalty. Have your savings gone over £6k? If so by how much and for how long?

An Ad Pen is only ever given as the result of a fraud investigation and is 50% of the overpayment (since April 2015) to be repaid on top.

My savings have never gone over £6k. There must be some penalty for giving incorrect information, even if there wasn't any intention to defraud the system, right? Or they'll do their best to put me through their some long drawn out investigation and send me to an interview under caution etc. Perhaps I should not mention it to them and avoid anxiety and disruption.

Carrieanne

You are worrying unnecessarily as it makes no material difference to your claim that your undeclared PayPal money bumps up your savings as you remain below the threshold. If there's a query in future, which I very much doubt, you can simply state you committed a forgetful oversight. You likely didn't account for whatever money was in your wallet at the time of the visit, or 50p coins you might save in a tin, or the £50 you may have lent to a friend or family member, etc.

Tommo1980

Or the £2.27 down the back of the sofa. Just forget about it and move on. As long as you are below the £6000 and have declared all the bank accounts/savings/investment vehicles they ask about, you are fine.

appletea

Carrieanne wrote: »

You are worrying unnecessarily as it makes no material difference to your claim that your undeclared PayPal money bumps up your savings as you remain below the threshold. If there's a query in future, which I very much doubt, you can simply state you committed a forgetful oversight. You likely didn't account for whatever money was in your wallet at the time of the visit, or 50p coins you might save in a tin, or the £50 you may have lent to a friend or family member, etc.

Thanks for the advice (and to everyone else!), just to clarify is your suggestion that I not mention it?

Wizardy18

Please stop feeding Andy guys

poppy12345

appletea wrote: »

Thanks for the advice (and to everyone else!), just to clarify is your suggestion that I not mention it?

How ever many more accounts you have you still need to ring and tell them. Providing you don't have savings/capital over £6000 then it won't affect your benefits.