FUCK, FUCK, FUCK - have I committed benefit fraud??

[ShittyBollocks]

I am posting in AIBU as I want as many answers as possible and I may well be being unreasonable anyway.

DH and I get housing benefit as he is on a very low income and we have a 18 month old DC still at home (3 others of school age). Before you all start saying that we should not have had DCs if can't afford them without claiming benefits , we COULD afford them but DH was made redundant when I was 4 months pregnant with DC4 and the resulting stress of losing our home after that has meant that I have suffered stress and anxiety symptoms which has meant that I could not go back to work. DH now has a MUCH lower paid job and less hours as I need him around and I am desperately looking for work but am getting nowhere.

So we get HB and struggle like everyone else. We had had several large bills to pay over the last few months. Car repairs cost us £800 (essential for DH to get to work), washing machine broke down etc so DH has had no option but to do overtime to cover this. We can't get any credit at all due to the financial mess we got into when DH lost his job and I was pregnant. I honestly did not know that we had to inform HB about the overtime, I understood it that we had to inform them if his contracted pay changed, i.e. permanent income. It did not occur to us that we had to inform them.

Anyway, we have recently been sent a letter from HB saying they want to review our claim and they wanted DH's payslips. We went in with them and last week, we got a letter saying they want us to come in for a formal interview due to 'discrepancies' in our income .

I am now shitting myself. Did we do wrong trying to cover all our bills? Could we be convicted of a criminal offence?

HELP!!

Yep you are human & on if you just go in & tell them what happened I'm sure you'll be fine. They are not judge & jury, & are suppodedly there to help. I found my local advisors very sympathetic. They deal with enough folk to be able to recognise a genuine mistake.

As winkly said you did not set out to defraud, if you are open & say you didn't realise, how can you sort it, they'll help you with an adjustment.

It is in no ones interests to crippple you financially.

just hand over the payslips, and work out an arrangement.

we had a similar problem with council tax relief - an honest mistake should not be treated as a fraud.

I too read the 'thats helpful thanks' as being sarcastic. You were not the only one Hecate

You are right to take this seriously, don't assume how you will be treated. In part, it will depend on the extent of the discrepancy ie how much and for how long. There's nothing you can do to cover up the mistake now, it's better to disclose exactly what's been going on and for how long.

If you are able, I would do a table/spreadsheet setting out each week/month with a column for what you declared, what you actually received and the difference. Take along all the payslips too. You won't be able to calculate any overpayment (they can be very complicated) but you can work out your offer of repayment. You need to know much can you pay per week and what your capacity for sensible borrowing might be if they require a lump sum.

If it's a meeting you can go alone, or take a friend for support. If it's an interview under caution, I would want to take a solicitor.

(I also read the first response as sarcasm, that'll be the trouble of the internet).

It's not "fraud" if you didn't realise you were doing it, it was a mistake.

I over claimed WFTC by accident and I just paid them back in monthly installments.

Is the overtime regular? If not one or 2 months out of 12 with extra income due to overtime shouldn't affect your claim.

Hi we too have had a letter reviewing our claim. Dh was told no pay rise this year and as he is on a pittance he never opens his payslip. We sent off 5 weekly slips and it turns out his wage has increased by two pound a week since April! Waiting to hear what will happen, I'm sure they will just alter our payments as its not a large amount. These things happen and you weren't doing it intentionally. But different if he were doing cash in hand work

If they call you for an interview they will tape it and you are quite likely to be prosecuted. It happened to a friend of mine because she didnt understand the system - and it absolutely didnt help in anyway that with every change of circumstance she'd phoned the bastards to advise them either.

And it is fraud - I went through all this with her - and the only way to avoid a conviction was effectively to plea bargain for a slighly lesser fraud offence.

Ignorance is no excuse in law.

Add on to that, 800 quid for 2 hours of a solicitors time - but it did save a conviction or formal caution whihc would have thrown up on a CRB check.

It was horrible in court. Dare I say with no pun intended, she felt like a criminal when all she was really of guilty of was being stupid. Even then she wasnt actually stupid, the twats had never altered anything in her records. But she had to attend court to formally confirm she'd come to an arrangement with the DSS.

If he earnt extra money and did not declare it they will want the over paid benefit repaid.

Sorry.

Any change in circumstances has to be advised that means an increase in wages they take 65% of any excess income. So be prepared to owe them money.

You wont go to court if it is less than 2k.

If it's an honest mistake, it's not fraud, HOWEVER I am a little surprised that anyone could really make this mistake. It's pretty widely advertised that you have to inform ANY changes in circumstances or income, so it was a bit naive to think your dh could do lots of overtime and be bringing in more income without it affecting the benefits you're getting

I think you need to get some legal advice from the CAB. Whether or not you see it as an "honest mistake" it is still benefit fraud, and I think all the posters that are telling you to fess up, say it was a mistake and offer to repay could be lulling you into a false sense of security. It is well known that you have to tell them about any change in circumstances.

How many months did your DH get paid overtime for, and how much money was it? (I mean, thousands, hundreds or less?)

There are several completely wrong bits of information on this thread.

What happens from here very much depends on the investigator and the LA's policy at the current time.

The most likely outcome is that, assuming you admit to your mistake and apologise, you will be required to pay back the overpayment but no further action will be taken.

If the LA has a zero-tolerance type policy then they could charge you and require you to go to court, no matter what the amount. There are two levels of offence - one requires dishonesty and one does not.

You are entitled to a free solicitor if it is an interview under caution - it is covered by the same legal aid scheme as police station interviews. If it is just a general discussion you are not entitled to a free solicitor but you could pay - I wouldn't advise taking a solicitor to anything but an interview under caution as it will look like overkill and might make them think you have something to hide.

If this is a one-off and a relatively small amount it is highly likely that you will get a rap on the knuckles and be asked to repay it. If it is over a longer period and a higher amount it is more likely that they will think about taking further action.

It may take several weeks for them to make a decision after your meeting with them - these things can be quite slow-moving because they will probably want to do further checks to make sure there are no other irregularities.

You may also find that they are quite agressive in their questioning - they generally wave the forms and declarations you have signed in your face and can be quite full-on. Stay calm and co-operative and you have a better chance of getting them to believe that it is a genuine mistake.

echo what fabby said. You wont go to court if its less than 2k. Also if you are called to interview then it doesnt always means you will be prosecuted.

How do I know? Ive been there... interviewed under caution accused of housing benefit/council tax fraud (for similar things to op) some of it was not my fault and I was completely ignorant of the system.

3 years later I paid 20 pound a month and ive nearly paid them back.

You wont go to court. The interview isnt very nice but its not designed to be

oh and I cooperated fully, was very apologetic, gave them what they asked for etc (didnt stop them getting some things completely wrong, they got my dd2s date of birth completely wrong and accused me of lying about it.)

Kungfu is right, DH is a benefit fraud lawyer, and seconds everything Kungfu said.

You will probably be interviewed under caution, even if it is by the Housign Benefit team, who will then pass this over to prosecution depending on the amount of overpayment/level of deceit.

However, these mistakes can be made, my mother had some bonds that she held for 20 years. When she lost her job she claimed council tax benefit due to low income, as she had forgotten about the bonds, they found out and conducted a formal interview and then just asked her for the overpayment back, but this was a few years ago and some LAs are cracking down on this type of thing.

I am sure if you keep all your paperwork together which show when the overtime happened they will be able to assess things more quickly.

Ive been there too, but they made a mistake with mine, I didnt owe anything but they said I owed 7k it even went to court, and I was told at court that if it had been under 2k they would not prosecute, I asked for the info to be looked into and they deemed they were wrong. There was then no court case.

I think there is quite a big difference between genuinely forgetting about some bonds from a couple of decades ago, and failing to inform them of a current situation.
The only benefit I have ever claimed is child benefit, but even so, the letter comes with it explaining that it is my duty to inform them of any changes, so for example if my eldest were to drop out of studying and start work, the onus is on me to tell them. I agree that there is a big crack down on this (rightly so- it is public money you are receiving) and tbh anyone who claims any benefit without keeping themselves fully informed of their responsibilities is playing a dicey game. You will have had paperwork explaining all this op, did you not read it?

Fabby it really depends on the LA and their decision on whether to prosecute.

Yes it is more unlikely that she will be taken to Court for an amount under 2K but it can and does happen.

Explain to them what you believed, and if they believe you have been over paid you will have to pay the overpayment back, but they will not press any charges etc, i experienced this as my ex done a course, which was for four days and was paid. He went through a place called working links which was just an extention of the job centre and they had told him that it wouldnt affect his benefit, so we hadnt informed them, next thing we know we get as letter to say they want us in for an interview, we stated the facts as we knew, signed the statement and got told if there was an overpayment they would contact us in order for us to repay it, a small amount each week. I shouldnt worry too much as this is a genuine mistake and they will most probably see it for what it actually is. x

Each council has their own policy with regards to the level of money owed and whether they take it to court. So the £2000 rule is not necessarily correct. Your DH must have done more than one or two lots of overtime in order for you to be called into interview. TBH ignorance is not really excuse. It does say that you have to notify them of any chnages in income when you sign your declaration.

OK deep deep breath. It's it a mistake that you accept will need to rectified/ paid back that's what will happen - well they'll take it back anyway but there's no need for it to go to court when they can just deduct from your HB payments.

An example - I pay variable childcare and had an overpayment april -July this year because I told them they were over paying me but couldn't get them to stop until the new tax credit award came through and had proof . When it did and I got the overpayment letter it had the standard 'benefit fraud, can take you to court etc' line at the bottom. I actually complained and said I appreciate it's a standard letter but is very upsetting and clumps everyone into the same category. Simply I pay £5 a week back until they've claimed back their £100 they overpaid me.

You should have notified them, yes, but it's an oversight that will be treated as fraud - because it's a technical term. Try not to worry and discuss with them an affordable payback amount.

I have a close relative who worked in the over-payments department for some years. She always said that lots of people had been overpaid through genuine errors and it was her job to track back over their varying income to work out exactly what was owing. They would make small repayments to recoup the money. So, although there isn't a lot of sympathy for fraudsters, I always felt that people who had made mistakes would be treated fairly. I hope that is true for you.

first rule of law

ignorance is no defence