My daughter is under investigation for fraud with universal credit. Can anyone help?

[Est1974]

My daughter went to uni last year, realised it wasn’t the right course and dropped out by the end of October to reapply for this year. I’d paid into a child trust fund her whole life that she closed to pay her living expenses to top up the loan - about 7.5k in total. She signed on when she got back and started looking for work. She declared the money appropriately and her uc was trimmed in line with it being over 6k. She got a couple of uc payments. She then got a Christmas shop job that lasted 6 weeks. Uc stopped during this period. I charged a little bit for food but she saved the rest and declared it properly each month. She applied for hundreds of jobs but didn’t get one until the May. She lived like a hermit, saved the uc and declared it every month as her savings went up. The May to September job paid really well and she saved almost all of it. She got no uc during either of the periods of paid employment. She was awarded two scholarships for women in engineering for her new university course. She is now in the new uni with a little war chest of nearly 18k.

Universal Credit are now gunning for her and want 12 months worth of bank statements and are accusing her of fraud. She got no money while she was working and at the time she got the second job she’d only amassed about 8k - well under the 16k limit which she declared properly at every stage and the uc she received between January and may went down accordingly as she saved it. The jump from 8-14 was during her summer job during which she wasn’t claiming and the other 4k is from the women in engineering scholarships. She wasn’t claiming while she got these earnings.

Shes on her own at uni in her first week, full of freshers flu and petrified. What will happen?

Call the Citizen's Advice Bureau.

Explain the situation in writing, in detail, to the UC department, provide them with everything they are asking for. If you want to help your daughter and take her mind off it, get all the information off her and write the letter for her so that she can get on with university. Tell her you will sort it out and pay any fine in the unlikely event there is one.

As long as her bank records match what you say she should be fine.
I'm surprised they are gunning for her , if what you say is true, they don't usually accuse you until they have stacks of evidence.
She wouldn't be eligible for UC if she had over £6k of savings (of any kind) though, so if that's what the records show, she will be fine.

That’s not true at all, unless your £6k is a typo, it’s £16,000 before UC stops.

From £6,000- £16,000 it's a sliding scale, I believe, it will also depend on your circumstances, such as if you have children- which the OP's daughter won't and other factors, the fact she lives at home might affect for example- the rules are quite complex. My point is if she had under £6,000 at all times she is in no danger, otherwise they could want some or all of it back and they would possibly be able to prosecute.

I am aware. However you did say she ‘wouldn't be eligible for UC if she had over £6k of savings (of any kind).

It doesn't work like that. There is no such scenario, as the law doesnt argue as you do.
Entitlement is based on what the government thinks a person in those circumstances needs to live on and takes into account income from other sources and savings to a set formula. There is no individual judgment on whether a person actually 'needs' the money the law says they're entitled to.
Provided the DD has reliably and accurately reported her savings and circumstances, and provided the amount paid to her was calculated correctly based on that, there will be nothing to be repaid.
OP if it's not resolved by providing the information requested, I second PPs advice to contact Citizens Advice.

They’re not going to prosecute her! She will have to pay some back going back to when her savings hit the £6k mark, but even then they don’t require one big lump sum. It usually so much per month.

Without dependents and other factors it's likely to be close to that- why would they let a student not paying out for rent or dependants have significant savings whilst working and claiming UC. The OP is obviously aware because she mentions the sliding scale- so I suspect there is something she has not mentioned that makes her fear her daughter will be prosecuted. The fraud teams in DWP are small and very overworked, without good evidence they would not pursue like the OP mentions.

I’m not really sure what your point is? Your first comment I responded to as it was incorrect. The rest of them are irrelevant to that.

But then, if the DD has 18k in the bank she is no longer eligible for benefits. Thus having to spend the money saved on living costs as it was intended in the first place. So she doesn't have to pay it back, but equally won't receive any more money.

Shocked she claimed at all. A healthy 18 year old living with parents? Wouldn’t even occur to ours to do this. Very grubby behaviour. Sounds like she’s now got in a mess with it so hopefully won’t be so keen to put her hand out again.

You are somewhat missing the fact she is being investigated for fraud, which means there must be some evidence (probably rather a lot of evidence) that she misrepresented or under reported, and meant to do so, otherwise a fraud investigation would not be live.

Not necessarily. It can just be someone reporting you

op if she provides the 12 months, and anything else they ask for she will be fine.

No, in my experience they don't open an active fraud case just because someone reports you, they have to have found evidence.

By that regard every investigation is a given and they are guilty, if they have evidence

anyway, what happens is they get a malicious report, they check it against employment history and tax payments and then launch and investigation. So no they don’t need evidence before doing so.

due to the complexity of the ops daughters situation, with the sporadic claims, savings, different jobs etc, then it would be difficult to correlate so it seems now they are just checking her savings.

They take £4.35 per £250 of savings you have over £6k until it cancels your entitlement out or you hit over 16k and you aren’t entitled.

If you have exactly 16k in savings they’d take approx £175 off your statement. So even with no children, no living costs she’d still be entitled to some UC at 16k because a single person under 25 entitlement is £338 a month.

She has been asked to provide bank statements which is absolutely normal and is agonist certainly not anything to do with fraud investigation which usually takes place without the claimant knowing.

They are not allowed to view every investigation as a given and that people are guilty- that is against the most basic precepts of English Law.

What is your experience? Because they don’t open a fraud investigation and tell you about it immediately. Normal UC procedures, that is, not fraud investigation, involve gathering bank statements for review. OPDD was asked to give be these and subsequently asked for more, which is, again, a completely normal part of being a UC claimant. I see nothing that indicates a fraud investigation from what OP has said and I think OP and her DD are not familiar with how things work so have jumped to assume fraud investigation when actually it’s just a normal review.

I’ve personally never found ChatGPT to be over reassuring when I’ve asked it not to be and found it very helpful at times

How is it grubby behaviour to claim a benefit you’re entitled to? 🤨

My partner worked at DWP for over 30 years and often worked with the fraud team. Also the OP clearly states her daughter is under investigation for fraud.

Yes but myself and multiple other posters can see quite clearly that the DD is under ‘review’ and the OP is over reacting to this, likely through lack of knowledge of the system.

The fact your partner used to work at the DWP holds little weight. Although, if he did deal with UC and reviews I would expect him to be more aware that to agree this was a full on fraud investigation.

Send the bank statements. If you can get it done, also photocopy them in A3 size and annotate with what the credits are, and relevant dates such as when she started and stopped working and when she signed on. A timeline drawn up separately would be useful too

When did he leave? Did he work for UC? Reviews are the norm now, every 6 months for everyone claiming UC. All reviews involve 4 months of bank statements for all bank accounts, post office accounts, credit union accounts, premium bonds, ISAs etc. And then depending on the cls circumstances, proof of private tenancy, childcare, wage slips or business accounts if self employed, proof of children if not claiming child benefit.

The reviews have nothing to do with investigating the cl for fraud, unless evidence of fraud is found during the review and then it is referred to the actual fraud department.