Bulgarian UC benefit scammers took at least £50m, possibly £250m per annum, via complex fraud.

True

It makes me wonder if there are insiders in the system turning a blind eye. What a terrible situation

Still a drop compared to tax avoidance- convenient no one in the government is focusing on that!
HMRC estimates around £400 million in tax was lost in 2020/21 because of avoidance schemes, and a further £800 million was lost in other forms of avoidance behaviour, i.e underreporting income and writing off personal expenses.

You seem surprised! The level of abuse of the UK benefits system by outsiders is staggering.

Lol You think Benefit fraud has stopped???? EU citizens can still come to the UK for 6 months, unchecked and the issue of NI numbers is still on going.... the black economy is booming.

...and thats before we get onto UK citizens.

Another mistake you might wish to correct.... 1/2 the population? you really mean less than 35% of the electorate.

Rubbish, the fraud carried on after we left the EU.... EU citizens could only ever claim what a UK citizen could, there was never an EU only benefits system.
As a council official once told me "the law is only there for those who wish to obey it"

Do we ever read about brits defrauding the French or German benefits systems? nope.

UK once again blaming the EU for the lack of UK accountability.

That’s why I said RTFT as I already corrected my mistake!

Nah it definitely wasn’t like for like or even anywhere close. Some EU countries benefited far more than others….

Thank god there has been a stop to it now. Clearly half the population wanted it to stop.

Drop in the ocean. Benefit tourism is rife. Pretending to rent homes that are rarely lived in, children not in school for months at a time, carers not even in the same country as the people they are meant to be caring for. UC is a joke.

None of that counts if you were EU citizen. They could claim everything even for kids that’s didn’t live here. Then you have to jump through hoops for you DH to be allowed here….

That's not what you said it it worked thf other way round in the past too to the benefit of Brits. But news alert, we left the EU and it hasn't been possible for years

That is not true re JSA , when i claimed for a month last year and rang them i need to change my sign on date as i will be away for 5 days they immediately closed my claim, they said i can't leave the country when claiming JSA

Yes and one of the ways they can prove they are habitually resident is to set up shell companies which don't actually exist such as shops which will then report their earnings to HMRC so it looks like they actually live here. Very few checks have been made by HMRC on the legitimacy of these companies until recently. As it looks as though they are earning a decent amount, they aren't called in for appointments so they can continue to claim U C without question.

Lots of these people aren't even in this country. They make all sorts of excuses not to attend appointments to continue their claims when they are caught. They will then produce false documents showing school attendance, doctors registration etc to prove they are here (the documents are often laughably poor).

The old system of JSA was that if you didn't turn up to sign on, your money was not released from the system. Now it can continue to be paid to people and their full families who aren't even in this country.

Multiple claims of housing costs are made for the same properties. False childcare costs are claimed.

Any possible loophole is exposed and abused.

RTFT, I meant EU citizens could.

no they can't! do people really believe this???

You would think it couldn’t be right, but no no, anyone and his dog can move here and start claiming…. Absolute joke and to think our own citizens can hardly afford to feed themselves. This is why so many folk voted Brexit.

Yes and one of the ways they can prove they are habitually resident is to set up shell companies which don't actually exist such as shops which will then report their earnings to HMRC so it looks like they actually live here. Very few checks have been made by HMRC on the legitimacy of these companies until recently. As it looks as though they are earning a decent amount, they aren't called in for appointments so they can continue to claim U C without question.

Lots of these people aren't even in this country. They make all sorts of excuses not to attend appointments to continue their claims when they are caught. They will then produce false documents showing school attendance, doctors registration etc to prove they are here (the documents are often laughably poor).

The old system of JSA was that if you didn't turn up to sign on, your money was not released from the system. Now it can continue to be paid to people and their full families who aren't even in this country.

Multiple claims of housing costs are made for the same properties. False childcare costs are claimed.

Any possible loophole is exposed and abused.

Yes and other countries do things like only fund citizens rather than temporary residents / those on a work permit

Example is Singapore - non-citizens pay for their own healthcare / schooling / library card / museum access / transport etc that for citizens is free / subsidized

Well, of course they got away with it. The DWP were far too busy hounding people on carers allowance for being pennies over the limit. And given that they couldn't be bothered to.use the tracking systems they had to notify people, is it any wonder that this happened with UC fraud? The DWP like to go after easy, vulnerable targets rather than get stuck in tackling gangs like this one.