Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To report fraudulent benefit claimant

224 replies

racmun · 12/08/2013 22:22

So bil and SIL who have a 1 year old daughter have 'broken up'.

As a bit of background bil works but SIL is a SAHM. They were in private rented but it was costing too much so They broke up SIL and niece got housed and 4 days later they are back together and bil has moved in!

Apparently he stays at mil once a week as she is claiming benefits as a single mother (have no idea what difference this makes) and if the state finds out she'll lose her benefits. This is what mil has told us btw, I f

This has made me really furious and I'm inclined to report them for benefit fraud and let the authorities decide if they are doing anything illegal.

Or am I just being a bitch.

OP posts:
mignonette · 12/08/2013 23:58

Broken I had to leave my employment and move to another health authority because I witnesses a senior ward manager verbally and physically abusing a patient and I blew the whistle. I approached him first and when he blew me off and threatened me, I had no choice but to report. And i didn't do it anonymously either.

So I do not need educating on what honesty is. What the OP needs a lesson in is how to approach these things in a functional manner as opposed to sly, gossipy dysfunction.

If OP feels that strongly, let her put her name to it. They will suss her anyway because you can be sure MIL will say something about what she discussed with the OP. They will suspect.

brdgrl · 12/08/2013 23:59

I wouldn't report a neighbour for shoplifting just because I saw them with a Mars bar and another neighbour told me they'd stolen it.

And I wouldn't launch my own private investigation into a family member's finances to try and gather evidence.

So no, I wouldn't report it.

MaryBateman · 13/08/2013 00:00

So he's living with them six nights a week and staying away the other night? Yep, that's fraud. Report away.

There are no specified 'nights' spent together that classify living together. The three nights minimum is an urban myth. It's about shared finances, a shared household etc. Which there must be for them to be spending six days/nights together and him only one night away.

Seriously?? You all think it is ok for the state - you taxpayers - to pay his way when he can't be arsed??

IneedAsockamnesty · 13/08/2013 00:00

Yes, I have read stories on here of people who have suffered because of false or incorrect reports, but that's just a price we have to pay for being lucky enough to have such a generous welfare state in the first place. We can't have it both ways

No that's the price we pay for malicious reports based on nothing other than gossip.

Would you report any other type of crime if the only inkling you had that it had even been committed was gossip?

HeySoulSister · 13/08/2013 00:02

You will 'cause harm'.... Benefits, if stopped, take a good while to re instate.... You gonna pay the rent and feed them if you've got this wrong?

mignonette · 13/08/2013 00:03

If there is no proof that he is paying any of the bills (separate bank accounts/bills in her name only/no bank payments in his name to utilities) then he can spend all his time there and they will not be able to prove it.

aturtlenamedmack · 13/08/2013 00:03

brdgrl is spot on.

MaryBateman · 13/08/2013 00:04

Yes actually Socket I would quite happily report that drugs were being sold out of the bogs in my local pub even if I only heard it as gossip. In a heartbeat.

BlehPukeVomit · 13/08/2013 00:05

I think it is 100 times worse to be a thief than a rattle tale.

I would never steal benefits regardless of how skint I was. I just couldn't.

However, I don't know if I could actually report them. I would want to but I am not sure I could go through with it. IYSWIM

IneedAsockamnesty · 13/08/2013 00:07

There are no specified 'nights' spent together that classify living together. The three nights minimum is an urban myth. It's about shared finances, a shared household etc. Which there must be for them to be spending six days/nights together and him only one night away

The urban myth thing your right about but you are wrong about the last sentence.

It is perfectly possible to have someone spend a lot of nights over but not be classed as living with you. What matters is data matching info and if another address is being maintained along with several other bits of criteria.as well as why they are there.

A decision on living together can not made based only on how often he is there its not lawful to do so.

Original poster
racmun · 13/08/2013 00:08

Soul sister

No bil can pay bills and feed them with the money he earns like everyone else who has to go to work to look after their family.

Brdgirl
I'm not launching my own investigation Into their finances, all I'm suggesting is that they should play by the rules.

OP posts:
BlehPukeVomit · 13/08/2013 00:08

Oops I meant tattle tale NOT rattle tale Blush

RoxyFox211 · 13/08/2013 00:09

Yabu. What do you (or anyone else) stand to gain from reporting them? What do you have to loose? I imagine it wouldn't end well.

mignonette · 13/08/2013 00:09

The two (benefit fraud and being anti grass) are not necessarily linked. I do not steal benefits. I would not anonymously grass somebody up. I would approach them first. I like the functional, adult way of doing it. Kind of makes the World a less underhand spiteful place. Even if it feels like a drop in the ocean sometimes Grin...

aturtlenamedmack · 13/08/2013 00:14

Op I think you knew what you were going to do before you posted, so just go ahead and do it.
You say you are shocked by the responses which seems to indicate that what you wanted and expected from this thread is to be told what an excellent and diligent citizen you are.
And you have by about half the posters.
So there's really no need for all this back and forth. Nothing said is going to change your mind.

RonaldMcDonald · 13/08/2013 00:15

RACMUN

Leave well alone

Conina · 13/08/2013 00:16

Brdgrl - I agree.

I'd also wonder how extended family life would be in the future if it came out you had reported them, and how it would affect your dp.

There's a young baby in this scenario too: if you have to say something then say it to bil and sil directly. Tell them that you are going to report them if they don't stop. Own your actions.

timidviper · 13/08/2013 00:16

I am shocked at the attitude of many on here who seem to think it is wrong to report people under any circumstances. If everybody turns a blind eye there will be no deterrent to fraud at all and society will be bankrupt.

I have great sympathy for those who truly need benefits and it pisses me off that, as a society, we could afford to do more for those people if we weren't paying people who see playing the system as a valid way to boost their income. I also think there is a difference between someone who has drifted into this kind of situation almost unaware when a new partner begins staying over and someone knowingly setting up a situation to defraud the system.

I think you need to think on how this could impact you all as a family but be in no doubt that they are dishonest, they are stealing and, if you want to report them, do it with a clear conscience.

WorraLiberty · 13/08/2013 00:23

I am shocked at the attitude of many on here who seem to think it is wrong to report people under any circumstances. If everybody turns a blind eye there will be no deterrent to fraud at all and society will be bankrupt.

YY but what I want to get to the bottom of is this...

Would the OP report her own grandmother/mother/grown up children??

so far she's avoided any questions about her motive or history with these people.

I wonder why?

CorrineFoxworth · 13/08/2013 00:24

Keeping people in prison and children in care is incredibly expensive. Much more so than doling out benefits.

But report away, tax-payers, you short-sighted eejits, and research outcomes for children who are in care while you are at it and how they will have a huge impact on the state long-term.

There are innocent children involved in this scenario. Young ones. Would you want them to be housed with older children who have been irreparably damaged by addiction or abuse?

mignonette · 13/08/2013 00:27

If as has been said, reporting alleged benefit fraudsters will save the country money;

If as OP said, BIl should be reported so he cannot get money he allegedly is not entitled to and should 'go back' to supporting his family on his salary;

Then the logical thing to do is for OP to notify them that she will tell on them unless they sign off their benefits. If she does not do this and reports them straight off, then they will end up costing her and us even more. A criminal conviction will result in his job being lost. They will then not only end up on benefits entirely, they will likely stay on them because finding gainful employment with a fraud record will be nigh on impossible.

So OP. If your motivation is the very high minded need to protect us all from the cost of paying allegedly illicit benefits, consider the fact that you will doom them and us into paying out for a very long time should you not give them the chance to repent and retract their claim.

MaryBateman · 13/08/2013 00:27

No Socket you are wrong. Even if data matching shows that your partner is registered at another address for council tax, gas, electric etc it matters not if DWP surveillance shows that they are staying overnight at your address for four, five, six nights out of seven. If they are spending six nights or four or five out of seven at your address you would have a very hard time trying to convince DWP that he is not living with you. To say anything other is to be disingenous to lone parent on benefits who might well have to be interviewed about their 'partner.'

And let's be honest. Any bloke who takes up residence with a single parent in such a way, knowing he might affect her benefits is probably a cocklodger and will take off the moment an overpayment is calculated.

mignonette · 13/08/2013 00:32

Mary not so I am afraid. I have attended several cases on behalf of clients and the only way to prove it is sole address and financial entanglement. And that is from the actual protocols they work to. I have a copy of them all becuause I am a CPN and need to educate my clients about what they can and cannot do legally. I have attended enough taped under caution interviews with clients to know the system pretty well by now.

JaquelineHyde · 13/08/2013 00:32

Fisrtly, just be bloody honest. You are going to report them, you just wanted to have a good old gossip on MN about it first. There is nothing in anything you have said that makes me think you are really struggling to decide whether to report them of not.

Secondly, do not kid yourself that if they are completely innocent that it will be a case of no harm done. They will most probably have their benefits frozen whilst the investigation is on going, which could cause extreme hardship.

It will also cause them to eye all their relationships with caution as they will want to know who has reported them and people do sometimes find out who has reported them. Having worked for departments that deal with this type of thing the fallout can be huge (and the complaints from people whose ID has been revealed generates a lot of paperwork). So only do it if you are prepared for them and your whole family to know it was you.

Finally, if they are found guilty of fraud and they are made an example of and get severe punishment, you need to make sure you are prepared to deal with the fallout from that and how it could effect your whole family (especially if your ID is leaked).

Report them, don't report them, either way make sure you go in to it with your eyes open.

IneedAsockamnesty · 13/08/2013 00:33

Timid,

Someone who drifted into this set up would probably end up actually committing fraud,
Someone who has set it up is unlikely to be doing so as its would be weird for them to not check the rules and work within them (well at least the rules that are in the public domain some are withheld from the FOI clauses).

Fwiw if I actually knew someone was committing fraud then I would report but I would not if I didn't know for sure I.e hear it out of there own mouth.