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Original poster

Private companies checking benefit claimants

233 replies

Hammy02 · 10/08/2010 10:30

David Cameron is going to work with Experion to check that benefit claimants are not spending money that they should not have. I think it's a great idea. Why should taxpayers pay for someone who doesn't work to have Sky TV, a car or a huge TV? If they can afford these, either the benefits they are receiving are too high or they have another source of income. Surely benefits are to keep people out of poverty and that is all?

OP posts:
smallwhitecat · 10/08/2010 11:23

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8Ace · 10/08/2010 11:26

I didn't think it was about benefit fraud. I thought it was about dictating what people bought with their benefit money (which they are entitled too). So you are in an unfortunate position where you can't work at the moment you shouldn't have a TV or buy clothes or anything that a tax payer disagrees with you buying..lets just bring back the workhouses.

A lot of people on benefits have put into the system for a long time anyway. Oh and its not "your money" its the governments.

Mingg · 10/08/2010 11:26

It will show the amount of credit you have and if you are making regular payments. If someone is claiming to be unemployed and on benefits yet making massive monthly payments it is safe to assume they are making extra money somewhere.

violethill · 10/08/2010 11:28

Some people need to read the OP. It's about fraud

MumNWLondon · 10/08/2010 11:30

I don't begrudge anyone a TV. They are very cheap, ours is 15 years old and still works fine (although we do now have a freeview box too). Having a new flat screen TV, sky TV, an expensive mobile or even smoking /drinking is another thing. These are luxuries. Benefits are to make sure people are not living in poverty. Not to pay for luxuries.

Cars are v expensive to run and regardless of where you live if you can afford a car on benefits then the benefits are too high (unless its because you are disabled and can't use public transport)

However using experion wouldn't help if its all being done in cash, or a relatives littlewoods account.

Regarding the comment about not being able to tell people where to spend THEIR money I agree, but benefits are the tax payers money.

ninah · 10/08/2010 11:33

I'd be happy if the planned to tackle tax evasion (not avoidance) with equal rigour
Wasn't the Chancellor a non dom until he wanted to take office?
also on MP's expenses

LIZS · 10/08/2010 11:34

A drop in the ocean I suspect. Won't it only pick up those buying on credit though, in which case it is the retailers/lenders who should be more discriminating in the first place. The real fraudsters would just pay cash or use id fraud.

ccpccp · 10/08/2010 11:34

Tax evasion = illegal.

Tax avoidance = tax planning to minimise exposure = perfectly reasonable. People are not under any obligation to arrange their tax affairs to the benefit of the treasury.

Last years 'tax avoidance is bad' thing was NuLabour spin, deliberately designed to muddy the water between avoidance and evasion. It was around the same time they started saying things like 'fair amount of tax' and other such wooly terms. People should pay the tax they are legally obliged to pay, and no more.

Cracking down on tax avoidance on this board seems to mean raising tax take on the rich. So - let benefit fraud continue while we hit the posh bastards for more.

Clearly some people are struggling to understand that the 13 year gravy train is over.

smallwhitecat · 10/08/2010 11:35

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FellatioNelson · 10/08/2010 11:38

Sounds like a good idea to me. (that's to the OP)

It's not about whether people on benefits for genuine reasons should or shouldn't be spending their benefits on luxury consumables - it's about finding out whether people are telling the DSS they live one life, whilst privately living another life all together.

FellatioNelson · 10/08/2010 11:42

There seems to be a great deal of condusion ont his thread about the motives of the scheme. It is to help identify benefit fraudsters - that's all. If the government wanted to control what benefits claimants spent their money on, they'd move to a voucher system for everything. They wouldn't need to pay agencies to act as detectives for them.

scaredyetexcited · 10/08/2010 11:44

What a waste of money to achieve what exactly?

Okay, someone is on benefit. They are obviously not 'wealthy' but they are allowed to have some savings before they are ineligible for benefits.

Now a credit agency divulges someone as having taken out a loan for something and as payments are being paid regularly - they are possibly benefit fraudsters??????? How on earth can the two always correlate?

Dont you think the government will be paying an heck of a lot of money to agencies to acquire this information and possible savings are minimal.

Don't you think career benefit fraudsters would be buying articles with cash

Who is anybody kidding here

Lynli · 10/08/2010 11:45

I am not on benefit but if I were, I own my car and pay £160 insurance and £180 tax, petrol variable.My neighbour who is on benefit smokes 20 cigarettes a day at £7 a packet, which is £2555. So looks can be deceiving.

I do know of women on benefit, claiming housing benefit and income support. They have a partner who is working and claiming unemployment benefit. Surely this would show with the amount of money they spend.

FellatioNelson · 10/08/2010 11:47

It's pretty difficult to work entirely in cash these days unless everything you buy involves a pub, a dodgy man, and the back of a transit van.

GypsyMoth · 10/08/2010 11:48

its all about how well you can budget your benefits...

unfortunately MN is full of tales of woe.....nobody seems to know how to budget!!

LIZS · 10/08/2010 11:50

Heard something briefly on radio this morning too, a discussion which seemed to eb about employers having a responsibility to check that employees weren't also claiming benefits to which they weren't entitled. However conclusion was that it was the same firms who operate outside the law themselves (ie use casual foreign labour at less than minimum wage, probably don't pay ni etc) who were least likely to participate in such a scheme and tacitly encourage employees to do so - so self defeating.

GypsyMoth · 10/08/2010 11:51

i could go to the british heart foundation furniture shop here....last week they had flatscreen in for £110.....huge ameican style fridges for £220.....second hand,but virtually unused....

so dont be TOO jealous of those on benefits....

budget
lower standards slightly
sho around

all doable......but then someone thinks 'they are on benefits,shouldnt have all that cos we havent'?????

Sallypuss · 10/08/2010 11:51

The 'credit reference' agencies hold a lot more data than just that for credit cards and loans. They hold voters roll information and other data which they can use to correlate how many people are living at an address (i.e. to negate claims for single person Council Tax relief), who is working (and correlate this against who is claiming unemployment/disability benefit etc)so it's not just about credit data.

GypsyMoth · 10/08/2010 11:52

that should be 'shop' around!

innocuousnamechange · 10/08/2010 11:54

I completely agree about appearances, and budgeting. We have some nice stuff in our house. Every last bit of it is second hand. Today, I'm wearing an Abercrombie lambswool jumper and 7 for all mankind jeans. Total cost £6.50 from a charity shop Shock We don't all dress in rags or need a big B for benefits branded on our foreheads. And do people really consider a mobile a luxury? I mean really? I have the cheapest contract I can get, with a phone for free. Many people don't bother with landlines, I know I don't.

MovingBeds · 10/08/2010 11:55

and some of them have dogs and who pays for their tattoos

Frey Bentos for Tea Sharon^

gramercy · 10/08/2010 11:56

It was in the papers that over 100,000 people on benefits are receiving in excess of £30K a year - and with no school dinners, prescriptions etc to pay.

On £30K + with nowt to do all day I'd be glued to my flat-screen telly.

SanctiMoanyArse · 10/08/2010 11:57

It's not about the OP

it's about hidden bank accounts and false claims of unemployment.

Hammy, a question please:

I am a Carer, not through choice. Should I then be kept in absolute poverty? Does my NI / rather large contribution to xoiety via my role not count for anything any more?

Oh and we have twoc ars!. Two!

One to get Dh to work (becuase he does, and there's no train station here or bus early enough) and one so I can get to the SNU with the boys.

Damned selfish me.

I bet you'd like to make two of your kids autistic in exchange for two clapped out old cars, £53 a week and no security from month to month yes?

(and no Sky becuase it's crap, and TV is biggish but old and FIL's old one)

mumeeee · 10/08/2010 11:58

What about people who had a job and bought these things during that time. Then they lost their job or got ill so they couldn't work, Do you think that they should have their TV and other stuff taken away fron them. I think it is a very unreasonable idea and just make people feel worse.

SanctiMoanyArse · 10/08/2010 11:58

And Ic an't do nothing all day, none of you work longer hours than me (24 / 7 supervision for two kids- unless you have a Tardis anyway)

I don't mind Experian checking our claim in anny way 9we also get working tax credits) as we have nowt to hide and it sounds like a good idea.

I do ahte people judging every forrm of welfare claim there is on the basis of the twats who steal from us all.