Ive Just shopped someone for benefit fraud, do I deserve to burn in hell.

[Gulitladen]

I feel quite bad.

This person is an acquaintance, She was a single parent for a few months, then she met someone who pretty much moved in, he was paying her bills for her and moved in properly earlier this year.

She has always worked full time with a salary of around 20k.

She seems to have an awful lot of money, and, as a single parent myself, I couldnt quite work it out. However, I have seen her tax credits renewal form as she didnt understand something and asked me to have a look for her, and shes claiming to be a lone parent, working 16.3 hours a week, earning 12k a year less than she actually is.

She is also claiming housing benefit as a single parent.

So, I have completed the DWP form and sent it off. I couldnt help it, it makes me see red.

But I now feel terrible.

That's a great analogy blackandwhitecats

mytwo But thousands of people have already had their benefits stopped. Have the amounts people receive risen to reflect this? Of course not!

This isn't to say that benefit fraud should or shouldn't be reported, but not reporting it isn't depriving genuine claimants. It's depriving MPs and those high up in the DWP from pocketing the profits.

But children and people are suffering when people make fraudulent claims, because there is, put simply, less in the pot for genuine cases.

Really. Are there still people that believe this bollocks.

Then that's a fault in the system but it doesn't make stealing - and that is what it is - right.

Rafa - my work as a care assistant takes me to children with disabilities as well as to elderly people and adults who are disabled, and yes, when one gains, someone else loses. However, I take your point that the government would not generously give to another but line their own pockets.

So of we are anti that and believe this is wrong, why condone grabbing behaviour of this nature? Are we all to say, in effect, well, take what you can get? Very sad if that's the case.

If people have had their benefits stopped then it's not the fault of people who have reported their genuine suspicions. Whether their benefits are stopped or not is not their decision to make.

All those people that say they would never report because it's none of their business or they don't want to be a grass, don't you see that if benefit fraud was stamped out then no one would have to lose their benefits when they deserve them? Don't you see that it's the fraudulent claimers that are making life harder for the genuine ones, regardless of whether there's going to be more money left in the pot or not?

Rafa Why is it not the same?

The OP has seen the renewal form. The 'friend' is claiming single status plus other anomalies. OP knows this s untrue. Not cast iron, truth be known but enough to arouse suspicion.

Same a reporting suspicious behaviour next door. You do no know they are burglars they could be house clearance/buyers/family but it still a suspicion.

I think whether we like it or not we do need to acknowledge the welfare state just isn't a bottomless pit.

I think where the difference lies in people's eyes, is that someone stealing from a house is taking personal items, someone abusing a child is obviously awful.

By contrast, stealing from the state feels anonymous - it isn't even like finding a twenty pound note which belonged TO somebody. Stealing from the state is so general and non personalised it's easy to see why people feel it is not 'really' a crime. But, it is.

WooWoo but what about those who make malicious reports? Why aren't they punished?

I think the only people who dont see benefit fraud as a real crime that should be taken seriously are likely to be people who do no work or very little work, and contribute next to nothing financially to the state.

It's easy to be non plussed about other people's taxes, but when you pay a shitload of tax, you are more invested in what happens to it and therefore do care about where your money is being wrongly spent. Especially when you see non contributors having luxuries that taxpayers can't afford.

Rafa, how true, unfortunately there are still sheep that the government has a hold over and whatever shit they feed them, they believe, oh how the government love their naivety. What utter bollocks. OP, you have reported somebody now based on your own insecurities, how the Establishment will love you, you've played right into their hands. This is the kind of stuff they keep us all in a tizz about so we don't look at the real picture, the rich creaming off millions in tax fraud, let's have a pop at the easy targets, those on benefits, which makes up about 1% of the missing purse because they don't dare challenge the tax evaders. Well done OP, you're doing exactly what they want, keep the peasants sniping at one another and then those at the top can carry on with their very special form of corruption and snigger at the rest of us and know they will never be touched. Well fucking done OP.

Oh yeah it's all 3D tvs and the heating on full blast being on benefits.

Moomin, I don't know, I don't make the decisions.

But I can see it would be incredibly hard to prove that someone was acting maliciously rather than out of genuine concern, so it's probably not worth the time and effort it would take to get minimal convictions.

How do you tell the difference between someone reporting because they have a grudge or because they care about criminals being stopped when there is fraud going on?

They are STEALING from DISABLED CHILDREN!

Can't believe anyone still buys that shit.

mytwo

Where were you 578 posts ago!

A crime is a crime, what determines the moral aspect of it is who an individual sees as the victim.

Next door neighbour = Person I know/identify with WRONG

Big chain store = They financially allow for the odd/accidently stolen item. OK

Government = faceless entity which has more money than us/keeps us on the poverty line/deserves it. RIGHT

If you begin to blur the lines of what is right an what I wrong without unquestionable argument then that is a slippery slope.

Yep that's what I've concluded too woowoo.

The people who don't have a problem with it are likely not big tax payers

It's pitiful, truly, but that's what the System relies on, keep the lowly sniping at one another and then they won't see the bigger picture, it's so transparent but no-one gets it, they think oh, I'll do a little benefit fraud report and I'll be doing my bit. Like fuck will you, nothing will touch the rich at the top who are exempt. The government just LOVE it when the little folk are all at each other, that's what keeps it all just as they want so we don't look at what's really happening, that those at the top who the government are scared to touch are royally fucking this country. But carry on all those who feel they're 'doing their bit' reporting benefit fraud, as if it matters, but carry on.

How do you tell the difference between someone reporting because they have a grudge or because they care about criminals being stopped when there is fraud going on?

Well, it's difficult of course, but given that over 90% of cases of reported benefit fraud turn out to be unfounded, it's a fairly safe bet that most people doing the reporting aren't doing so from a position of accuracy, or from a position of doing something responsible for society. So you might not be able to 'tell the difference' as such but in most cases of shopping thy neighbour there is no fraud and it's only a short step from that to infer that in most cases the reporting is malicious - after all, it's a malicious act.

No, it certainly isn't. But then, it isn't for many working people either, particularly those who work in low paid jobs, and for many of these people they are far more likely to encounter benefit fraud than they are to meet a millionaire evading tax.

It isn't about playing into the governments hands - it is about what you encounter in your day to day life. I live in an area with high social depravation and there are many thoroughly lovely people here but unfortunately there are a handful of vandals, of drug dealers and users, of violent individuals. Surely I am entitled to report them?

It does seem strange as on here people are generally told to call the police over actions I would view as minor irritants rather than police issues, but where benefit fraud is concerned, people can steal as much as they like because, well, it's benefits?

Is that the argument?

If having morals and reporting crime when you know it exists is playing into the hands of 'the establishment' as if that's such a terrible thing and being naive, then I'm happy to be one of their sheep.

But I don't live in a world where I feel government and authority is against me constantly, so I don't need to have some pathetically jumped up and self important opinions just to feel I can have some self respect.

The people who don't have a problem with it are likely not big tax payers

Or maybe they are big tax payers but also know that benefit fraud and claimant error (ie no fraud involved but an overpayment happened) amounts to 0.7% of the entire benefits bill, think that that's a fairly negligible amount and not get all frothy about it.

so I don't need to have some pathetically jumped up and self important opinions just to feel I can have some self respect.

Oh my.

1. As I've already explained, the OP's partner living with her does not mean she is not entitled to claim as a single person. That has nothing to do with it. I also happen to think that HMRC are more likely than not to have noticed a 12K difference between what the friend is earning and what they have on record as her earning. So I doubt the OP 'knows' as much as she thinks she does.

2. On the balance of probabilities, 2 strange blokes removing stuff from your neighbours while they are away are more likely than not to be stealing. On the other hand people reported for benefit fraud are more likely than not to be innocent. Added to that, the consequences of you being wrong in the first situation are likely to be minimal or very short term whereas the consequences of you being wrong in the second are huge and much longer lasting.

0.7% of £150 billion or whatever it was last year is still a shitload of money that I'd rather not see go to line the pockets of lying, cheating thieves.

Benefit fraud that is proven, anyway.

As this thread shows, many people are reluctant to report for a myriad of reasons and this is what appears to be a fairly clear cut case.