Friend 'working the system'

[leannarose5]

I have a friend who was in a very sticky spot this time last year. She had gotten pregnant from the result of a one night stand and he didn't want to know. I really felt for her. Obviously, she had to claim some benefits as her wages weren't enough, and rightfully so.

Fast forward a year, she is in a new relationship, they are living together, he treats her child like his own and she helps to run his familys business. She has just found out she is expecting.

She also recently told me that her boyfriends family pay her cash in hand, and she does not declare her wages. She hasn't declared that her boyfriend is living with her despite the fact he is working full time and owns a property which he rents out. She hasn't declared that her daughter's father pays her maintenance. She has now decided to tell me that she can't believe how rich she is going to be once she has her second baby, so she is not planning on declaring it then either.

I know it's none of my business, and I know reporting her wouldn't make me any better off financially (I don't plan to report her) but I can't help but be furious. To the point where I am really struggling to be around her. I am a believer that the welfare system is a safety net for people who really need it, just like she did originally, and people who abuse that are the people who make everyone so anti-welfare and it's really unfair on people who truly need it.

So my question is, would I be unreasonable to avoid her, although she hasn't done anything to me personally, because I disagree with the way she lives her life? I know I sound a bit stuck up and pretentious, but I'm just really not sure how to deal with this.

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

Meh.

Are you begrudging a child's mother obtaining 15% (possibly less if deductions happen) of her ex partners salary for CM? And thinking that the receipt of CM means you have access to 100% of the paying parents income?

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

And op it will not matter a bit where he parks the vast majority of fraud detection happens in a office miles away from where its taking place.

[leannarose5]

I'm not begrudging her maintenance, I was the one who talked her into getting maintenance off her daughters father...i just thought it meant she had to declare it that's all, but now I know I am wrong. To be honest if it was just the maintenance thing it wouldn't really bother me as like she said, he's not reliable. What I disagree with is the fact she is being paid a wage and not declaring it and is living with a partner who is working and contributing to the household and not declaring it. Those are the main parts.

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

That wasn't to you op.

I think you should report her

[Sidge]

I'm with MaryWestmacott - I'd gradually withdraw because I find it hard to be friendly with people whose moral compass is set differently to mine.

There's a world of difference between genuinely claiming the full entitlement of benefits and tax credits you're eligible for, and working the system to obtain financial support fraudulently.

[Nancy66]

I hate this 'say nothing' attitude.

There's a whole other thread running about how shameful it is that disabled benefits are being cut. It is.

Benefits are being cut because the bill got too high. People like your friend ARE partly to blame.

You can't have it both ways. You can't be furious that money is taken away from the genuine needy but not bothered that the greedy are milking the system.

Report her. She's a parasite.

[Suzannewithaplan]

?No, benefits are being cut because greedy rich powerful people fucked up the financial system.
?
It's just so much easier to blame the poor and powerless.

I'm not condoning cheating, what amazes me is that someone on the fiddle is dumb enough to tell other people.
She's not smart enough to get away with any kind of financial crime perhaps you should dob her in now to put a stop to her fraudster ambitions?
If she gets away with this she might be tempted to try and pull off a bigger ruse, inevitably she'll mess up and get in even more trouble. ?

[Nancy66]

This woman isn't poor and powerless though is she? She's a greedy taker.

[PausingFlatly]

The current cuts are idealogical and nothing to do with fraud figures.

There has been a long-running problem and well-understood problem with the pension bill, because there are more older people, living longer and it wasn't a fully paid-up system.

Obviously actual fraud should obviously be dealt with, but blaming it for the current swathe of cuts... Nah. Nice scapegoat though.

[Suzannewithaplan]

Exactly!
Focusing our minds on the misdemeanors of those at the bottom distracts us from the actual causes of the problems with the ways that money is distributed and apportioned

[AlpacaLypse]

Someone who is deliberately defrauding the benefits system is as guilty of theft as someone who deliberately defrauds investors in the City. Just because one crime involves a few hundreds or thousands whereas the other involves many millions doesn't mean that they are both still the same crime, both morally and legally.

[peggyundercrackers]

i would report her as its theft.

[PausingFlatly]

And by the way, I wouldn't describe actual fraud as "working the system". Any more that actual tax fraud is "working the system". Unlike tax avoidance, which is.

[minipie]

I know reporting her wouldn't make me any better off financially

Benefit fraud results in increased tax rates for taxpayers, and/or harsher rules for benefits claimants who truly need the help.

[Suzannewithaplan]

Really Alpaca? And is murdering one person morally the same as massacring thousands?

A person with harly any money fiddling the social is as bad as already very wealthy bankers destroying the whole fucking financial system?

Really? ?
I would suggest that your moral compass is faulty, it appears to only have north and south, all points in between are missing ?

[RonaldMcDonald]

tax avoidance...'working the system' by people who have absolutely no need to work any system
tax avoidance is worse than benefit theft imo but is ignored as it is done by wealthy people with no moral compass - the strivers

having the money to pay your taxes but spending money to find a way around doing so is vile

we bleat about whether someone on very minimal income should be reported as she is perhaps doing something wrong in her benefit claim
we then waste lots of money investigating this and then what? jail her? costing more money and untold damage to her child

however having pots of money and paying a tax consultant to beat the system is fine
we'd never question those people...our betters
rather we'll turn on those who have least and snap and sneer at them

FGS

[Suzannewithaplan]

?The hard of thinking doff their caps to the rich,they must deserve to be rich, otherwise they wouldn't be rich.
Similarly kick the poor, they must deserve to be poor otherwise they wouldn't be poor?

[Nancy66]

The woman in question isn't poor. she's bragging about how loaded she is by taking money she's not entitled to.

[MaryWestmacott]

Agree, she's not 'working hte system' - working the system would be not letting her DP move in, not letting him move in and share the living costs, but lying that he doesn't, that's cheating the system.

People who "work the system" be it benefits or tax, are sticking within the 'letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law'. People who break the rules are not working the system, they are defrauding the system.

[weresquirrel]

Report her, she is committing a crime. Why would you not report her? If a friend of yours broke into a house and stole some old ladies jewellery would you just say "I don't plan to report her because she is a friend"? I never understand why benefit fraud is seen as ok if it is done by a friend on MN yet any other crime would be reprehensible.

[MaryWestmacott]

oh and I particularly detest what this woman's doing, being paid cash in hand so she's not paying into the 'pot' her income tax or NI, but at the same time, taking money out of the 'pot' in benefits she's not entitled to.

[Mulderandskully]

I can see why people are more eager to deal with benefit fraud than tax evasion on a large scale. You're empowered to do it aren't you? Call the benefits people, report, they will investigate as deal with it. Good citizen box ticked. You can even call HMRC and tell them mr friendly builder isn't paying his tax- they will investigate and deal with it.

Call HMRC and report vodaphone for tax evasion? You aren't empowered to do that. Well you can, but you only know this may be taking place through the media, so it's not your "info" to report, and even more pertinent, HMRC know about vodaphone. They either don't know how the fuck to deal with them, or they are in the very very slow process of doing so. So your call isn't quite as informative is it?? Not quite the same scenario.

[Davsmum]

I am not sure I would report it but I do know I would tell her I think she is totally out of order.
I would not want her to think I agreed with that sort of fiddling the system so I would probably make it clear I thought she was a cheat.

[LineRunner]

I don't think it's that MN tolerates benefit fraud so much as it doesn't tend to tolerate the fake angst of many of the OPs who opine about it.