Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2 3

AIBU?

to feel sick to my stomach!? Re SIL & Benefit fraud.

68 replies

YourFredIsBoring · 25/08/2015 21:59

I will try to keep this as short as possible without drip feeding.

SIL and I are incredibly close, always have been. We are the same age and have known each other since we were 15. We are now 25.

SIL has two children and is married. to a twunt but that's a whole other thread

She told me tonight that she is claiming housing benefit, child tax credits & income support. She also claims for PIP for depression and runs her own (which hasn't been declared to anyone) business from home earning 250-350 pounds pcm.

However, her DH works and lives with her. She has told everyone above that her DH has been moved out for the past year. This is how long she has been claiming all of these extra benefits for.

I told her tonight that she is bang out of order and a criminal. She laughed and said that she couldn't cope without the extra money. Her DHs earnings aren't too bad - around 23,000 per year.

I am sickened. She is one of the reasons our country is going to pot! I am so disappointed in her but know that there's nothing I can do about it without losing my DHs side of the family. I am absolutely gutted.

OP posts:

Thanks

Share

Report

Crazyrabbitlady · 26/08/2015 02:19

You say her dp is a twunt?
Maybe he isn't paying the bills or giving her money.

I have been there myself and it's not pretty. I would do anything to keep a roid over my children's heads and good in their bellies.

Thanks

Crazyrabbitlady · 26/08/2015 02:24

Roof and food! Bastard Autocorrect!

Thanks

MaddyinaPaddy · 26/08/2015 05:39

could you really live with yourself if you grassed her up? I certainly couldn't!! I am not sure what they would do anyway if they have already spent money going out to check.

Thanks

lastnightiwenttomanderley · 26/08/2015 06:24

I'm always intrigued on threads like this when people say 'could you live with yourself if you grassed her up?'

I know that sometimes often on here people get the wrong end of the stick or don't know all the facts but if she is playing the system then she's the one at fault and to blame for any fall out. It seems that having children.gives you some form of wierd 'protection' morally.

Would people say the same if someone had stolen a car, or been taking money from a..elderly relative? Genuinely wondering where the line is as, personally, I can't quite see the difference and think.it's sad.when people genuinely.claiming get tarred with the scrounger label because of the few who do abuse it.

Thanks

00100001 · 26/08/2015 07:35

Just report her, if it bothers you that much.

Thanks

BMW6 · 26/08/2015 07:40

Don't fret about it Op - there's loads of money for all who need it so it doesn't matter if some are cheating the system........

Thanks

AuntyMag10 · 26/08/2015 07:44

She's a great example of why people are sick of these scroungers. And there are many more like her. Report her.

Thanks

OLDcadet · 26/08/2015 07:44

Do not report her first! Give her a chance to sort things out. Perhaps she doesn't know what to say to them, how to explain things.

Speak to her and to your brother at the same time. If they live together it's there issue, and you need to know that he's not telling her to do it.

I got myself in to trouble for saving too much in my own country. My savings went over a certain amount, I didn't understand the significance of the amount and I didn't do anything, then I was in deep shit with them (in my own country not the UK). It was so traumatic.

But saying that, it does frustrate me enormously that single mothers get a bad name for being scroungers when it is couples who are defrauding the system in this manner.

Thanks

OLDcadet · 26/08/2015 07:47

crazyrabbitylady yes, I know of a man who made his wife go on benefits to ''toughen her up''. She got in to a mess with the SW, he sailed on unaffected. It was financial abuse. Not enough to financially abuse her, he wanted the threat of being able to report her as well, she took that power away from him by confessing herself.

Thanks

TestingTestingWonTooFree · 26/08/2015 08:06

As someone up thread said you can work and claim pip but it's highly unlikely that she's told them she's working. Working is relevant to how bad her depression is. I think she should be prosecuted. I also think her husband should be, but he'll get away with it.

Thanks

DinosaursRoar · 26/08/2015 08:21

Thing is, if she's had someone round today (so that you found out about the whole thing), then it could well be someone's already reported them, or at least they are suspected of being dodgy. It wouldn't follow that she'd think it was you that reported them. Sounds like lots of people don't agree.

It might be time for a 'family intervention' can you get your DH to talk to MIL and arrange to invite SIL and BIL over with you all there, and you all sit them down (both of them, it shouldn't all be about SIL) and spell out that you all think it's wrong, what she is risking, that you think BIL is behaving very badly to let SIL take all the risks (tell him in front of her you can't believe he's prepared to let his wife risk prision so he can have a bit of a better lifestyle and hope he didn't realise how much she is risking, but to you it looks like he doesn't care about her - put him on the spot too), and then say if she gets a big fine or a prision sentence, the rest of you will not help them out, no looking after the DCs while she's inside, no help paying fines or costs.

Then say you don't want to be linked to it, so until they've stopped claiming, you don't want to see them again.

Tough love time. If you aren't going to report and she fines the whole thing funny, you need to throw every bit of emotional pressure you can to get them to stop.

Thanks

DinosaursRoar · 26/08/2015 08:23

oh and if MIL works for the council, could it effect her job if it comes out that she knew? If so, I would get your DH to explain it to his Dsis, surely she can't be so heartless not to care she's risking her mum's job? If she is, then I think it might be time to reassess how much access to your life you give her, if she's prepared to stab her own mum in the back, she'll do the same to you at some point. Keep at arms length, no matter how much you like her.

Thanks

caker · 26/08/2015 08:26

The visit won't be the end of the investigation. They watch to see who is coming and going from the property.

Thanks

itsonlysubterfuge · 26/08/2015 08:42

If you report her chances are she wouldn't go to jail? I've never even heard of someone going to jail for it. On the .gov website it just says

"##you’re taken to court
##you’re asked to pay a penalty (between £350 and £5,000) instead of going to court
##your benefits are reduced or stopped
##you’re told to pay back the overpaid money"

As the consequences. You know she should be stopped.

Thanks

PausingFlatly · 26/08/2015 08:42

Yes, sorry if my post was misleading. You can indeed claim PIP while working - clichéd example would be wheelchair user with office job, for whom the mobility element helps defray their extra costs of getting to work.

But for someone with depression severe enough to get PIP, in the particular periods when they have care or mobility needs, the chances are they're also less likely to be able to work productively, because home and work often require the same skill set that's been affected (ability to initiate tasks, organisation, memory, concentration, ability to deal with other people, etc).

Thanks

Onedirectionarestillloved · 26/08/2015 08:45

She has put you in a terrible position op, why did she tell you I wonder?

My friend was summond to an interview by the benefits agency fraud department, she had no idea why she was worried sick. It was whilst she was going through a very acrimonious divorce from an abusive man. She lost weight couldn't sleep had to be treated for depression and so on.

Turns out she hadn't put down a payment she had received from an old job, it was a tiny amount, something like £200. It was money they should have paid her before she left but gad failed to do.

All her benefits were stopped and she has 2 children to support one of whom was undergoing counselling because of her parents divorce.
After the interview she was allowed to carry on receiving the benefits and got a slap on the wrist.

The whole incident was awful and imo completely ott. The reason this happened is because of people like your sil who knowingly abuse the system.

Everyone else is punished and treated with suspicion.

I don't have any advice except to say if her and her dh ( he is as much to blame) get caught it won't be anyone's fault but their own.

Thanks

suzannefollowmyvan · 26/08/2015 08:47

I would tell her that the visit probably means that she ?is on the radar and that she may already be under surveillance.
Also point out that many people feel very strongly about cheats and? are likely to feel she should be punished.

If she is bragging someone will want to see her taught a lesson ?

I don't think I would report her because I'd not want to be tangled up in whatever complications may follow ?

Thanks

sanfairyanne · 26/08/2015 08:53

Where is her dh claiming to live? They are probably under surveillance already if being investigated so i wouldnt worry about reporting her.

Thanks

Flip

1 2 3

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.