to think you can't claim to be homeless living in an airport if your income is £1400 a month

[dhdjdbrjrkbr]

Strange DM story today, nothing adds up

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2943251/Homeless-Heathrow-look-holiday-truth-middle-class-couple-living-airport-losing-500-000-home.html#article-2943251

She's also 62 and capable of working to top up their income, but chose to turn work down as she did not want to be parted from her partner.

I don't think anyone here is claiming it will fund a champagne lifestyle, but it is enough to rent a modest home, and plenty of people are forced to make less money go around more people. I don't see the DM posting sad face articles about zero hour contract workers who go without food so that their children can eat.

If anything good comes out of this bizarre episode, hopefully it will be a discussion about how little many, many households have to live on.

So online fundraising can just be a man called Kamel Human reproducing a DM sadface article and asking for donations now?

I suppose it beats working for a living, you could set up a dozen a day just from the Mail Online, seems to be enough soft people about to make it worth a punt

I find it hard to believe she's only 62 from the pictures (but that's an aside).

But then again, it might be relevant? Perhaps her entire mindset is "I'm 62, I am old, I shouldn't be working, I should be enjoying a comfortable retirement". It is probably what they both expected given their circumstances a decade ago, and they don't quite know what to do with themselves now that their income has reduced so much.

Doesn't make them poor enough to be homeless though!

She is 6 years younger than Janet Street Porter, for instance. 5 years younger than Hilary Clinton, only 2 years older than Angela Merkel (and 27 years younger than Angela Lansbury who was working in London this year )

Most of us on Mumsnet will be working well into our 60s before qualifying for a pension.

I am very pragmatic person but even I would find it suspicious if they had set up FB page/ Twitter ac now when they have never had one previously.

If you actually take an advice from the founder of WWW it's to stay off and put as little as possible info out there in order to be able to control it.

Since it's no story already due to no foundation to it it will die off eventually. Press will only continue with a story where there is some evidence in order not to completely discredit themselves. However as pointed by many the press will never defend the millions of hard working people even less likely so if they were wrong to begin with.

The only apologise when threaten with legal actions by some someone who can afford it. That's the reality.

My mum is 68, she still works 30 hours a week in quite a tiring and intellectually demanding job. I'll be about 70 before I can claim a state pension.

"If you actually take an advice from the founder of WWW it's to stay off and put as little as possible info out there in order to be able to control it. "

Tim Berners Lee was talking about personal information, things that might put you in danger or cause embarrassment or make you look unprofessional to a potential employer. As far as I know he has never said anything about PR for businesses. And this situation is precisely the opposite case, by saying nothing the B&B owners appear to be dodgy, when they could easily prove that these suspicions are not true.

And while people will stop talking about it, they will also remember and so will all the search engines, and the suggestion software on Facebook etc.

Saskia
Correct as soon as their names are out there then they would need to endlessly defend themselves against multinational corporation hiding behind fancy names. Precisely the reason not to do it.

Basically you are saying that if they just join in to defend themselves they would be listened to. Give me a break please. Ordinary people without legal teams behind them don't stand a chance as many can tell you from their own experience!

5 years younger than Tessa Jowell, 2 years younger than Harriet Harman. Etc.

Hang on though.

At least one person on Twitter says they stayed at Heathrow Cottages and it was the people pictured in the DM (eg Alan Lane and Katrina Smith) who ran the B&B he stayed in.

And several people have stated that there was a picture of them on the B&B's Tripadvisor page which was later removed.

Are they all lying Eve?

If it is the case that you know the couple, all they need do is put a statement on their website with a photo of themselves outside the B&B. They should have done this when they first started receiving phonecalls on Sunday.

To do nothing is foolhardy. This will damage their business long term if they do nothing and it's already been damaged. They are burying their heads in the sand.

Eve What you are saying may have been true 20 or 30 years ago. Now, it's not. And if your B&B friends are genuine they must be spectacularly inept when it comes to promoting their business and managing PR.

"all they need do is put a statement on their website with a photo of themselves outside the B&B. They should have done this when they first started receiving phonecalls on Sunday."

Yes, this ^

Perhaps the B&B miraculously went out of business after the last Trip Advisor report before all this started? October 2014?

Maybe they were hired helps for the b&b? Maybe they didn't have live-in accommodation?

That said, I'd be surprised if more doesn't come out. Mr seems to be particularly fond of internet attention. That's a trait quite a few fraudsters seem to share. They remind me of the canoeing couple somehow.

I'm not sure where Eve is coming from here at all? Her friends are not identifying themselves because they don't want the publicity - surely a simple statement as suggested above by Ronnie and Saskia and hundreds of other people have suggested. But no, they obviously know much better than us......

There was also a direct quote from someone who stated on calling the B&B
"i asked can i speak to Alan lane or katrina smith. he said this is alan lane speaking

This was at 11.50pm on sat night he sounded like he was asleep. and my call had awoken him. i posed as a customer and said i want to talk about a booking he said do you know what time it is i said yes its 11.50, well can you call back in morning so we can sort out booking"

Again as most of the stuff here on the internet, this could be a shitstirrer, but then again might not be.... its all out there to be discussed - on a bloody discussion board

and i have no idea what's meant by (Limited) "But I find many of the views here to be naive in the extreme and very judgmental."

Judgemental, yeah sure, judging people who spend £300 on storage and £400 on B&B who say they cannot afford a flat in an area where they have no ties, then yes, i'm fucking judgemental,

Naive? feel free to elaborate...

once
You make things up unfortunately also could be classified as lies. Since the phone wasn't answered as you state "this is Alan Lane speaking" you heard what you wanted to hear. Mind is a powerful tool in a good and equally bad way.

Once didn't make the phone call Eve someone on the Gofundme page did.
They, of course, could be lying.

As stated by others who have done basic research "the business is owned by Alan Legge and if you look at archive versions of his website you can see his name on there. So...not the same person/people. The domain name for the B&B is also registered to him"

So it must be the truth Pipbin

But can't you see Eve, people are suspicious.

If your friends Alan and Katrina do not proactively distance themselves from this then they are destroying their own business.

The internet searches linking their B&B to this story are not going away any time soon.

And people have stated that the couple from the DM story do work/run the B&B. Why don't your friends just make it clear if they are not them?

If your phone rings at 11:50pm and your asleep and the first thing they say is 'can I speak to Alan Lane' how much of that are you really listening? You might register the 'Alan', someone has said their real name is Lang which could sound almost exactly like Lane at 11:50pm at night when you're wondering if it's the police or a hospital because no good ever comes from midnight phone calls.

Sometimes the simplest answer really is the correct one.

RonnieRat
If you read any of the other day publications reporting the story of the middle class homeless at LHR none of them name the business, clearly for a reason.

MidnightScribbler

Saskia,
"If anything good comes out of this bizarre episode, hopefully it will be a discussion about how little many, many households have to live on."
I agree with this .

However , I also (this couple to one side - not a comment on them ) but there have been a few highly publicised cases of crowd funding recently through these kind of websites and as a growing phenomenon I would like to read about how exactly are these sites to be regulated and used. In the olden days you could put an advert in the back of Private Eye which basically said - send me money - people could ignore it and it wasn't widespread. With twitter , FB etc , these things now get huge coverage in a condensed form and essentially it seems to be caveat donor. Ie not much scrutiny of the "ask" .

This is not a comment on any particular case.

RonnieRat
Of course except DM and publications owned by the same company but that would bring us back to Lucy 'letsignirefactstomakemyselflookcleverer' Osborne who is just not worth mentioning any more.

Oh FFS Eve. I said they could be lying. The chances are that they just want to seem all 'big' on the internet.

Pipbin
No need to swear. It amazes me how people feel it's all right to swear etc when they hide behind screen names on the internet.
Majority of the people appear to be 'big' on the internet and when challenged they just become aggressive - especially on this thread.