UC Claim Review

Altior

Out of interest, how does AI show that a claimant has a PayPal account?

NedS

AI simply analyses the (vast quantity) of available data and is used to spot anomalies or scenarios linked to a high probability of fraud. I presume the question you mean to ask is how do the government know you have a PayPal account - because PayPal are required to share data with HMRC.

Altior

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81932699#Comment_81932699

Thanks, partly that, and partly as I was involved in the development of AI in my former role. Not the coding but assisting with improving output. Not saying you at all, but a lot of people have this imagination about what AI can do, and it doesn't match the reality in my experience! I was curious to know how it would detect confidential detail.

As I understand it, PayPal is only required to share data with HMRC once revenue has passed a certain threshold during the tax year. So it wouldn't have sight of someone's PayPal just being used for payment processing. I suspect. But yes, those are the types of claimants that a digging deeper would be a good use of resources, potentially operating a 'business' on the sly.

HillStreetBlues

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81932699#Comment_81932699

I think they find out because either a person tells them or there are PayPal transactions on bank statements.

DWP only has limited info and needs the claimant to supply most of it. If they already had all the info it wouldn’t have to be supplied.

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81932521#Comment_81932521

If they use it to run through statements, it would flag it up.

Altior

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81932767#Comment_81932767

Indeed, but NedS was indicating that it would be a flag to initiate a review. ie that AI could identify that someone had an undeclared PP account, before any review, and therefore it would be the trigger for the review. It makes total sense that software could pick it up within a review, but not before one (to me!).

NedS

UCR agents are not told what may have triggered a review, and the public line historically has been that they are random. Some may be random, but AI is definitely also being used to identify claims that present a higher fraud risk, whatever DWP currently determine that to be (I'm not going to go into specific details here for obvious reasons).

You can see some of the types of things DWP are doing or planning to do in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025, overview here (passed into law in Dec 2025):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-authorities-fraud-error-and-recovery-bill-2025-factsheets/public-authorities-fraud-error-and-recovery-bill-overview-factsheet

This gives DWP access to far greater data sharing with banks and other institutions.

Dave1UK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81932501#Comment_81932501

If I knew the telephone service was outsourced/not of much use then yeah I wouldn't have but I was hoping to get clarification from another human who could inform me of the issue, guess not. I could have added a comment on the journal myself!

In regard to reviews, most likely they are random especially the first initial one conducted? If the first goes smoothly I'd assume continues to be random, however if there are hurdles with the first one, one can only assume the reviews would be more regular to ensure everything is a-ok?

Anyway I realised when we signed up to UC we already had that "joint account" for rent and bills setup and I was already paying into it back in 2024 from my personal account. So I must have declared it then/notified them otherwise it would have surely been picked up/flagged at the start like now? Unless it was missed on their end?

I will be contacting them tomorrow via journal, so I can resubmit all statements to get the ball rolling, hopefully get it sorted prior to the claim review phone appointment and then use that to explain whatever requires an explanation.

Dave1UK

Just wanted to update the post if anyone finds themselves in a similar situation.

As per my previous post I requested UC to setup another To-Do so we can resubmit our statements and did so. Then we just awaited our claim review telephone call.

During the claim review, we confirmed our personal details, we were asked about a few transactions and that was literally it.

Few days later, we received a message stating, the review has now been concluded and there are no changes to our claim.

tifo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81931382#Comment_81931382

They ask for a Paypal statement and send you information on how to do this. I had to do this in 2024 with the first review even though I didn't use Paypal for a long time.

I'm in the middle of a second review now and waiting for the telephone call for review. I submitted bank statements in middle of Feb 2 months ago.