To ask if you have had any contact with benefit 'scroungers'

[JumpRope]

I utterly believe that we need to protect the poor, vulnerable and those unable to work and they should have help to live.

I grew up in a very rural area, fairly poor, very hard work for non land owners - workers werefarm labourers mainly. And there were many people leaving school in the 80s and 90s and then abusing the system - picking up the dole, laughing about it, straight to the pub until it ran out; I remember a dog called Giro. People just sold a bit of marijuana for extra work. After moving to a bigger town, I came across families like this, where the dad would start it off, and the children would just grow up and do the same.

There were jobs around. As students homes for holidays, we picked up work without trouble, and could have stayed on, got promotions etc.

How do you deal with these situations? How can we make sure we are not making cuts to those who desperately need it, whilst absolutely changing the mind sets of able bodied men (and women) who have grown up believing they are entitled to money for nothing.

piddle you are NOT a scrounger!

I used to work in a disability day centre, and I am sorry to say that I saw it many times. People who were out to claim everything they possibly could and who were unashamedly cynical about it. There were also people there who were in heart-breaking situations and who desperately needed every penny they could get. It made it worse seeing the scroungers (and believe me, they were) next to the truly vulnerable.

I see this too in my job as well. It makes me see red, especially when I see other parents desperately struggling to even buy a pint of milk.

A know an arsehole running a tax avoidance scheme who lives the high life as do his clients.

Tax avoidance falls into the same moral category as claiming all benefits you are legally entitled to. In both cases, you will have told the relevant government agencies the truth and paid/received what the law says you should have, so I'd say you're doing nothing wrong.

Even if you've deliberately chosen a life where the relevant truth optimises you income to the detriment of the taxpayer, I think that's fair gaming of the system.

We have to draw the line about what's acceptable somewhere, and the letter of the law seems the most practical option, to me.

If we don't like what people do within the law, change the law.

Yes in my professional life. I have nothing but contempt for them privately but have to be pleasant and professional towards them since the money they pay me for 'luxuries' pays the bills.

I must be a rarity, I don't know anyone claiming benefits who doesn't need it,

In the past I haven't seen much of it, the occasional one or two but it's not as wholesale as the media would have you believe.

I worry more about people suspecting everyone on a disability benefit as being "on the take" because of a few cases.

I claim DLA for my son who is autistic, to the extent that if you spent a little time with him you wouldn't know it. Spend a few days with him and you'd be in no doubt as he doesn't sleep, struggles with school and needs lots of support. Anyone could look at me and think "what does SHE need DLA for, nowt wrong with that kid?"

Unless you are living in the home 24/7 you cannot possibly know for definite.

I'd be very wary of labelling anyone a "benefit scrounger".

Unfortunately I know a lot.

Some through my old job who would usually pretend they were a single parent (while their boyfriend lived with them). I also heard many conversations about how to convince the doctor that you had a bad back/migraines/depression etc. It was frustrating but the young mums I worked with had little in the way of motivation or role models to improve.
I also have family members who choose to live like this, including a 18 year old who purposely got pregnant at sixteen, so that she could get a council house with her boyfriend. It didn't quite work out as she hoped as it has taken 2 years to get it, although she has just moved into a brand new build as part of the housing regeneration. Her boyfriend claims to be unemployed while working as a labourer cash in hand. She brags about being paid to watch TV, and has never worked a day in her life.

I hope those of you who are so sure those people with 'bad backs' and 'depression' are fiddling the system have reported them to the Benefit Fraud \hotline

When some friends of mine left university one briefly claimed HB to pay her rent from other despite the fact that they were in fact living as a couple. They boasted about how clever they'd been and because I had no experience of the system I just accepted it, but in retrospect it was crooked as hell. They're now fully employed pillars of society and I guess the state would have been happy to pay her HB if they had been just friends....

At least 15 years ago, the husband of a friend of mine told me working was a mugs game

piddle you are so not a scrounger!

he had bipolar btw

I know at least 2.

Yes. About 15 years ago the mother of then DP hurt her shoulder when she fell when we were all on holiday in Belgium. Firstly, she decided to pretend that she had fell on her employer's property, so she could 'negotiate' a pay out when she said she was in too much pain to continue to work there (prior to the holiday and her fall she had decided that she was going to leave her job because she no longer enjoyed working there). Once she had been successful in that first bit of deception, she decided to claim for whatever the version of DLA was at that time. She managed to lie her way into that as well.

She was perfectly open with her family about what she was doing and the fact that she was lying. Perfectly open about the fact that she could work if she wanted to, she just didn't want to. No one challenged her (and this included 2 family members who worked in the legal profession). But she was a bully, and was used to getting her own way in the family, so it possibly didn't occur to anyone to say anything. To my shame, I was also silent. I had been thinking about splitting up with DP for a while, and sort of had bigger personal fish to fry, as it were. I was furious though. I was divorced before I met that DP, and my ExH had had brain cancer. He was extremely ill with both it and the weekly inpatient chemo he had to have. He couldn't talk properly, couldn't walk properly, was exhausted and had epilepsy as a result of it. Yet he wasn't 'ill enough' to receive whatever benefit it was at that time. He was supposed to get up off his hospital bed and go to work. But she lied her way into it.

I fucking hope karma has bitten her in the arse. Bitch.

Assassin the key bit in your post is '15 years ago'

DLA is very hard to get nowadays.

I'm going to be claiming tax credits and child benefit for the first time. I'm going through a divorce from my husband who earns a six figure salary. I'm appalled that I'm having to claim money from the government when my ex is on six figures. It just doesn't sit right with me, but what choice do I have if he's only paying the bare minimum he needs to? It's disgusting that people are in dire need of help and I'm having to claim despite my ex being such a high earner.

I'm supportive of the welfare system and hate seeing the vulnerable suffer from cuts / bedroom tax etc but yes I do know someone who I think the system has allowed to sit and do nothing her whole life.

My cousin is 6 weeks older than me. We both left school the same year ( 1988) and had the same opportunities/qualifications. The job market was also very good ( I had been offered four great jobs before I had even left school)

She got sacked from her first job for bring late all the time. She then went on the dole and was, at some point ,made/asked to do some voluntary work. At this voluntary placement she met a man and quickly became pregnant. They got a council house very quickly because her partner was a vulnerable adult. Another baby came along and then a few years later she split from her partner but was allowed to keep the council house. He was rehoused.

She is now 45 and apart from a few months at her first job when she's was 18 she has never been in employment. When she came under pressure to go back to work she became depressed and also ,because she became very overweight, her heath started to suffer. I can't see her ever working now.

There was a time ,when I was in my 20s and I was struggling to pay a mortgage and waiting to be able to afford to have a baby, that I absolutely hated her for being able to pop out babies and have someone else pick up all the bills.

Now I feel very sorry for her. She doesn't have a great life and there really is no way for her to improve things.

DLA is very difficult to get....it's an awful form, so much so that even though I have a degree I asked for help to complete it correctly.

Then there has to be corroboration from a consultant or doctor dealing with you/your child. Plus other supporting evidence, it's not the case that you can fill in a simple form and be awarded it with no questions asked.

I am not saying that if you are determined you cAn defraud the assessessora but it isn't easy.

DH's cousin has a 23 year old son who left school at 16 and has never worked. He supposedly lives at home with his parents, claims benefits and does painting and decorating for cash in hand. He says he has no motivation to get a job.

His girlfriend is 34, lives in a council flat where he spends most of his time, and she has never worked. Says she has lung problems (but smokes like a chimney the three times I have seen her, and walks the dog for miles).

I know of two. Both hale and hearty single men with no dependants. Both claimed for many years, both complained about the various charity jobs they were made to do/interviews they were made to go on etc. Both were open about fiddling the system. One of them, particularly, was vocal about his 'entitlement', despite never having worked or paid taxes in his life. Everyone who worked legitimately and paid their dues was 'bourgeois' and a sucker, according to him. His benefits fraud enabled him to take extended winter holidays to India.

I know that one of them no longer claims anything and feels slightly guilty. The other, holiday-taking one, feels no guilt or social responsibility.

Bursurymum - she still lied though and was fraudulent in her claim. Why is the fact that this took place 15 years ago relevant? She still stole money including from her employer.

I have no idea if anyone I know fraudulently claims anything now. Since that episode I have preferred to not know about stuff like that.

Tangled

When you say the bare minimum, do you mean as ascertained by law?

You are absolutely entitled to claim but you are right, you should not have to.

In my life I have know loads...I understand why it is now so difficult for genuine claimants - because people took the piss...

From being a teen (80s) - three girls in the same family had a really strict father - all 3 got pregnant as teens, father threw them out and they got a council flat. (They had just tightened the rules so teens couldn't get council flats when the eldest got pregnant - my friend's and I were planning on getting thrown out so we could get a house together ).

I knew a group of 20-30 yos in the 90s who lived on benefits. Five who house shared and when the rules about having to apply for jobs first started coming in they complained and then made it into a joke - sat at the table together with the paper, picking the most unsuitable jobs to 'apply' for ...completely made it up.

Also I know three separate people who rented rooms in council flats from the tenants. One shared with a random stranger, tenant was living elsewhere, one because the tenant was a friend who wanted to try and live somewhere else but didn't want to lose their (cheap) flat and third shared with the owner -a 20ish yo who had the flat because her mum lived in a council house with her younger siblings and they needed a bigger house for someone, so they downsized the mum and provided the eldest with a 2 bed flat. Someone reported her but she was warned and my friend got thrown out with no notice - which is when she found out this girl was a council tenant and claiming HB too.

My DP (EU citizen) moved into a hostel when he first arrived in London (early 90s) - mainly Spanish and Italians. They told him it was easy here - go and sign on, get benefits and housing benefit and then get a job - doesn't matter if it is cash in hand or not - cos tax and benefits don't talk to each other so they never find out...he did do it as well for a while, until he moved on.

I was seriously ill in the early 90s, apparently I should have got some kind of sickness benefit but didn't. I got told this 3-4 yrs later by someone with MS who acted as an disability advisor, her husband was her full time carer. She told me you had to exaggerate your disability - when someone came round to do an inspection she got caught out - she was pretending she couldn't walk at all and they asked to see how she went to the toilet, got to the door and the wheelchair wouldn't fit through -so she pretended she crawled from the door to the loo.

I really really struggled when I was ill - for money and with pain -physically not capable of working on my feet full time (I was a chef) and I was also suicidally depressed. I didn't know how the system worked (I should have had a social worker to help me but I fell through the net) so I had to cope the best I could.
I also ran into a problem a few years later when I was retraining. I had four part time jobs and studying - I wanted to give a couple up for two months just whilst I did my exams (I seriously needed to put some study time in or I'd fail -and with 4 jobs and college I didn't have any spare time). I wanted to claim mainly housing benefit but I was told by the guy in the job centre to give them all up - else I'd be worse off. I was eligible for one (can't remember name) because I had paid NI for years. If I hadn't I would have got income support, could have worked 16? hrs a week and got housing benefit. If I had just had benefits, not worked, I would have been £5 a week better off on the one I was eligible for...

Now in the last few years ...my neighbour told me he had been on carer's allowance for 20 yrs - his poor wife was so ill she couldn't even get upstairs on her own, needed 24 hr care. He brought the car right up to the door for her. Not only did I see them a good mile along a cliff top walk with their grandchild (about 10 miles away from home - they didn't seem pleased to see me ) but also she managed to walk the 1.5 miles back from the pub pissed on a Sat night more than once that I know about...then when he died suddenly she carried on living in the house on her own for over a year...
And I know of two people who I suspect are not officially living with their partner purely for benefits...
I also know of one woman who hadn't worked for years - agoraphobic couldn't leave the house. She got helped into a job - a call centre job, working from home. She loves it and whilst not 'cured' it has been really good for her - she has now managed to leave the house a few times etc. A really positive outcome.

Well what I mean is not that it was not fraud (if true) but that perhaps the application process was easier then and you didn't need so much back up from doctors?

I have three friends who all claim single person tax credit when they are in relationships with their childrens biological father. All three work and so do their partners.

I don't know anyone like this either. I know a fair few who desperately need the thoroughly inadequate benefits they do get, though.