Reporting a friend for Ben fraud

[username1423]

I have been thinking about it a long long time. I feel sick reporting her but at the same time sick of her dishonesty.
She is claiming benefits for her young son and a council place. She’s openly told me she gets a lot from government.

He on the other hand has a lot of money and is using her flat as a place to stay as he still lives with his mum and dad.
I didn’t report because she’s had a rough time and she kept telling me he’d use his money to pay for a place for them all soon.

However, she’s now been with this guy for about 3 years and he has a lot of money and is very flashy and open about it. Her ds even has a car seat in the back of his new Porsche sports car.
Im torn as a friend as I think she deserves to have an ok time as she’s had a rough time in last few years with ds absent dad but now she could be with this guy and living with him and working but she’s choosing to keep council place as in her words ‘she’d rather put the money on designer clothes and champagne’
Aibu to report her or should I just stay out of it. I feel like I can’t be her friend and meeting up with her is awful as recently she’s been buying things on the bf credit card and then selling them to me to get cash and I only found out she was doing it through another friend and I told her I wasn’t comfortable as the bf thought my f has bought the stuff for me as a present and doesn’t know she’s been selling me the items so when I see him I don’t say thanks and he’s told me he thinks I’m rude not saying thanks for what my friend got me etc, I’ve never told him.
She’s been so dishonest with me I feel like it’s time to report now because it’s getting way out of hand,I recently watched her pay £1k for a designer dress and then go back to her council place where he’s always there!
But I don’t want to be a nasty person!

Well, the girl down the road and I both lived in HA houses and I used to sit for her and her boyfriend if i wasn't going out that night and we'd talked about our housing benefits but ...would I have shopped her? I really don't think I would. She was quite sure it was one of her elderly neighbours, but who knows?

I think that the only time Id express concerns to the authorities would be if there was something like child neglect going on, to be honest.

"Letters from the government"

Since when does "the government" administrate individual benefit claims? If you mean letters from some other institution that is responsible for benefit related matters (there's more than one) and you were paying enough attention to remember the benefits being claimed, why be so vague as to say "the government" and not the correct department. It's not as if they don't have nice big easy to remember letterheads.

Council houses are administrated by the local council, not the government.

On another note, council flats are a right bastard to get let out, especially if high rise. No bugger wants them, not even benefits claimants. Councils up and down the country are either throwing them open to anyone who wants them (Google "no wait council properties") or decanting the existing residents before demolishing the whole block/estate.

There's an estate up the road filled with blocks of various types of council flats (high rise, low rise, maisonettes). Right on the estate they have shops, a primary school, launderettes, take aways, pubs, community centre, learning centre, church, ample safe free parking, green spaces with trees, wildlife and a groundskeeper. The local amenities beyond that are fantastic, huge shopping centre, library, council offices, cheap shops, dear shops, hairdressers, bingo, gyms, furniture & carpet shops, Royal Mail depot, doctors, late chemists, DIY shops, butchers, street market, dentists and the list goes on.

The flats themselves are oldish but nice, clean, dry, quite spacious with large balconies and the area is very quiet. My friends live in one and the view is breathtaking.

The rent is about £75 a week.

A large number of the flats are empty purely because they are council flats and people look down their noses instead of looking around the property. Every time one becomes empty, they are put on the "no wait" council list which is our local councils term for low/no demand.

So, if the OP's friend were to be dispossessed of her "cushy" council flat, there may be no one else willing to take it and I'd fail to see that another empty council property that's drawing no rent for the local economy as a good thing.