To think it should be a criminal offence to intentionally maliciously report benefit fraud when no fraud is happening

[IneedAsockamnesty]

I'm obviously not talking about genuinely fraudulent claims just the ones where none exists and are done to cause honest people problems.

Apparently over 90% (trying to remember where i got that info from)of calls to the fraud hotline are not genuine something I can well believe given that when I worked for the dwp the vast majority of the reports we got were quite obviously malicious that resulted in findings of no fraud and many other area depts reported the same thing.

The other steps we take to combat fraud such as data matching are really very effective, investigating these claims costs money both for the dwp/hmrc and for the claimant and can be very upsetting.

Obviously reports should still be semi anonymously made just only anon with regards to the claimant getting the info.

Personally I couldn't do that to someone even if I had fallen out with them but lots of people do.

I think the person who reported maliciously should be made to pay for the cost of the investigation. That would stop false reports sharpish, and would allow the people investigating proper time to chase up genuine benefit fraud. YADNBU.

Agree but how do you prove anything here. Unless the person has a habit of it and has a recorded feud going on with the reported person.

My personal view is that you should not be able to report anonymously and if you're found/strongly suspected to have made a malicious report then your name will be given to the person you made the report about.

If I reported anybody for anything I would always do so openly ( unless ding so would place a vulnerable person at risk).

It's fairly easy to work out if it is malicious if you know the name of the reporter, often after doing the paper checks and during first contact with the person they will often say something along the lines of " FFs falling out with xyz has happened" if xyz was the reporter it's quite obvious.

Ok they may not admit it and you may not get enough evidence to go to court but it may prevent it happening

Someone made a malicious phonecall to SS about us, it was horrible. The investigation dragged on for months (only 3 visits, but we were quite low on the priority list so we had it hanging over us for ages) and every time I have a baby, at the booking in appointment I have to declare our previous involvement with social services.

Sometimes people will make an allegation as they think there is benefit fraud going on (e.g, people claiming benefits but partner working), the DWP might be fully aware of the partner working and the benefits have been adjusted accordingly.

In their mind there is genuine fraud going on which is why they have reported it.

Revealing peoples names would probably stop people reporting genuine cases. But people doing it for malicious reasons should be made to pay for the investigation. But again, they could claim that they really thought fraud was going on

Why would only the person your reporting to knowing your name prevent an honest caller?

And so few genuinely fraudulent reports are made that its unlikely to make any difference if nobody phoned them at all, most fraud is detected by computers or the claimants own actions. I'm sure the thing I was reading said 96% were false reports.

ellie

I think doing that should be an imprisonable offence.

errr reprisals

The problem is that giving your name to the person you're reporting to, and they recording it, runs the risk of the name being accidently given out. I have heard of people reporting a genuine concern, and the person investigating coming out with something like "the neighbour says..." (where there's only one neighbour) or the name being visible on information given out.

I don't expect it happens very often, but the risk of that happening would stop a lot of people reporting.

I suspect a certain number of malicious callers wouldn't care that much if their name was given, as they would be quite happy for their victim to know that they had caused them that hassle.

But also if you say that:
FFs falling out with xyz has happened" if xyz was the reporter it's quite obvious.
and then drop any investigation, then some abusers are bright enough to realise that is a very good way of making themselves look innocent. In fact, I bet some of them already do it.
"Oh I bet it's X or Y that made the report-they said they'd do that when we had the argument last month..."

If it is possible to prove malicious intent then there should be repercussions but even if reporting wasn't anonymous the proof would be impossible 99% of the time.

I'm not saying give the name to the claimant just make sure the handler knows it.

And no investigation at all would ever be concluded based just on what the claimant says is fact that would be daft.

The claimant has to prove what they are saying but the vast majority of sanctions or reclaims or prosecutions are done using behind the scenes stuff with computers and technology or surveillance the vast majority of the time face to face contact is a mere formality.

But if you go down tha road and reporting can be come an offense, people will stop reporting for concerns about children to SS etc, or that DV is going on as it is all similar territory. There seems to be a voice out there for women who report rape that doesn't end in a conviction to be viewed as false allegations, it's a bit of a slippery slope and this kind of thinking can stop people reporting.

The way you have phrased it in OP would be very hard to prove "intentionally maliciously" report etc. It would be hard to prove the person hadn't just made a mistake anyway.

You can already be prosecuted for wasting police time if they start an investigation as a result of false reports/information. But as with anything they won't prosecute if they think they can't prove it.

I was surprised when someone I know was reported as claim inning fraudulently. Their benefits were stopped as they were claiming as a single parent and the person reporting them said they were not and had in fact just got married.
The investigation involved someone going to see the claimant and asking if they were lying. They said they weren't and were definitely single. Benefits reinstated.

The problem here is that they were lying. No checks were made and I would guess its something they would've been able to find out relatively easily.

So this wasn't a malicicious report but would have been treated as such and the claimant continued to receive their benefits.

How about when it's being done by professionals in another dept, ie; school, education or SN, in order to blatantly cover up their own failings?

Lesser sentence? greater sentence? or it doesn’t count if it helps that department?

Sorry that should say :

Sockreturningpixie
I think doing that should be an imprisonable offence.

How about when it's being done by professionals in another dept, ie; school, education or SN, in order to blatantly cover up their own failings?

Lesser sentence? greater sentence? or it doesn’t count if it helps that department?

In theory the only people who would stop referring are the ones who are not making honest referrals or honest mistakes.

justGetting

Worse offence,as it included a misuse of authority and power, I come across it a lot with my work.

jemina

Then the dwp did not follow their own procedure

You can already be prosecuted for wasting police time if they start an investigation as a result of false reports/information. But as with anything they won't prosecute if they think they can't prove it

The police do not do many benefit fraud investigations the dwp does the bulk of the work, perhaps a wasting dwp fraud teams time offence,but I expect that could be greatly misused

I'm with you on that mrsD

No I agree there can be harm done. I had a neighbour make veiled threats she was going to report me for child neglect or whatever. The kids had made too much noise in the garden one summer afternoon and I think she also had some MH problems as she was causing problems throughout the community. It did cause me a lot of stress and worry though.

There are some very nasty people around, and being able to report anonymously re benefits fraud and, even nastier as it is so personal to SS, is an absolute gift to them. There should be a special hell for those people IMO.