Do I keep quiet or report for potential benefit fraud?

[Keepnoseoutorreport]

I've namechanged (feel free to check with HQ)

So an acquaintance has had anxiety for years, claims PIP and can't work. I have anxiety too and know how crippling it can be it's absolutely horrific and find at its worst it stops me engaging in a social life, stops me sleeping, and I can barely function. So I'm not without sympathy.

However. This acquaintance has for the past 6 weeks without fail been out 2 or 3 times a week on big nights out, music gigs, hen dos etc and posted the photos all over facebook. In the next post the next day moaning that she is broke, too unwell to work and scared of losing her PIP

Now I'm getting pretty sick of it and feel she is taking the piss a bit and the way I see it I have a couple of options;

1. congratulate her on her recovery and quietly suggest she minds her Facebook closer as people may not take kindly to her posts

2. report her to dwp

3. seethe, delete and ignore and let her trip herself up in due course.

I'm torn between 1 and 3 in all honesty.

Why so judgemental? Being well enough to go out and self medicate with drink is not an indication of being well enough to work or even look after yourself (which pip is supposed to help with). Health can fluctuate, only if consistently better for several months would a long term improvement be realistically expected. Leave her alone

I would go with 3 and let karma catch up if needed. Someone I know was worried she would lose her PIP for mental health so made up hallucinations (admitted it was made up for that reason). She kept her PIP but lost her driving listened!

As Smashedmug said: if she gets PIP, she'd get it whether she's working or not. It's not means tested, it's not to do with whether or not you're able to work. It's a top up because often having a disability means you have extra expenses. Her working or not working is a completely separate thing.

If she's annoying you, I would go for option 3. You don't know how her anxiety affects her. When I had CBT for anxiety, going out actually was part of my therapy. It's what friends were doing, so going out meant I was re-engaging. It meant I was putting myself in difficult situations, but also doing things that I wanted to do. You are allowed to want to go to gigs even if you have anxiety! Having PIP might well be the difference between being able to go out knowing she can get a taxi home whenever she needs to and not being able to go out at all. Also, being able to go out, a situation where you are among friends, have no responsibilities and can leave whenever you start feeling overwhelmed and holding down a job are two very different things.

as others have said PIP is not means tested. This lady has literally done nothing wrong or illegal.

FGS there is no need to send a petty snide message about her being on the road to recovery simply because she’s enjoyed a few nights out. I swear the attitudes in our society towards those who claim anything makes it feel a bit nazi Germany at times. All these nosey people waiting and hoping to catch others out including their own friends and family.

Leave her alone. Anxiety manifests in different ways in different people. And there are far too many people on here who think people in receipt of any kind of sickness benefits should never be allowed any pleasure or happiness in their lives.

WOW.

Option 4: Avoid being so judgemental. Realise that she can have crippling anxiety with either

1. Specific triggers, that she doesn't encounter on a night out- perhaps certain things cause her to have panic attacks but not others.
2. Bad days and good days

AND let her live her life.

PIP is not an 'out-of-work' benefit- you can be in receipt of PIP and be working and fully able to work and many people who are able to work are also able to go on a night out, whilst in receipt of PIP.

To qualify for PIP she only needs to need either:

A. Help with daily living tasks such as using the toilet, cooking, eating, showering/bathing.

OR

B. Mobility issues.

I cannot imagine you would be considering reporting her if she was a wheelchair user who enjoyed nights out so it's important to realise that you do not know the whole picture.

If you were to report her the DWP would need evidence that she does not struggle with bathing, preparing food, dealing with money etc.

1. Ignore in the knowledge that it's none of your business.

Butt out. Unless you know her extremely well and she has opened up to you, you have no idea how her anxiety manifests.

Leave her alone.
I have a chronic illness and anxiety, depression etc.
If someone reported me for going out I'd be horrified. This isn't benefit fraud.
The problem with illnesses is we have good days and bad days and they take this into consideration when making an assessment. She may have had a good week and been able to go out, next week may be bad and she may not be able to leave her bed.

Leave her alone.I have a chronic illness and anxiety, depression etc.
If someone reported me for going out I'd be horrified. This isn't benefit fraud.The problem with illnesses is we have good days and bad days and they take this into consideration when making an assessment. She may have had a good week and been able to go out, next week may be bad and she may not be able to leave her bed.

^^ This with knobs on!

@CocoaGin Ps PIP isn't in place of employment, it's personal independence payment, you can work whilst claiming. Even if she worked it doesn't mean she would not receive PIP.

@esk1mo How do you know she doesn't need PIP? Know her, do you? When you put in a claim for PIP I don't recall there being a question stating, "do you really need this?"

3

Don’t they stop PIP and other benefits while they “investigate”? So even if your allegations are completely false and the DWP agrees theyre false, an innocent person would suffer delays in their payments. For many, that would have a catastrophic impact on their lives.

3

I believe in karma.

Why are you so obsessed with how someone else lives their life?

“To get PIP for mental health issues is extremely rare which is why people are being called in for reassess”

Nope, more people have an award of pip than people did on dla for mental health reasons.
And more importantly you can have anxiety and go to a club etc. Anxiety can affect people differently and on different days.

Please leave her alone. You don't know the whole story - you don't know if she went to the hen do for 30 min and had to leave, you don't know if she has specific anxiety triggers (one of mine is that I get really agitated if I can't walk out of a room - I sometimes wake at night panicked and need to walk around the block), you don't know if she's having a good week and will pay for it by not leaving the house next week.

You're not a doctor. You don't have a clue what her deal is. And passive aggressive "congrats on getting well" may well be just rubbing salt in a painful wound.

I've changed my opinion. I think you should do the passive aggressive comment and then she can make a note that you are being weird and stalking her Facebook obsessing over her health and avoid you big time.

Also op are you really that stupid not to realise people have a “Facebook image” that is often very different from reality.

Are you sure you have anxiety, OP?
For someome with it I'm shocked at the lack of education, "everyone with this illness should be affected and behave the same"
Not nice when someone questions your illness, in particular mental invisible illness, is it?

4. Give her the benefit of the doubt instead of judging someone you don't seem to know well; leave her alone and mind your own business.

OP stated that her friend can't work. So who is supporting her? PIP is irrelevant as others have stated, but I would imagine this lady is claiming housing benefit amongst others, and relies totally on the state.

Benefit fraud costs billions. Paid for by those of us who go to work and pay tax. That makes it all of our business.

Mental health problems are complex and unique to an individual, as are their coping strategies.

She may well be taking positive action to improve her mental health. That doesn’t mean she is still not entitled to PIP.

Would you report a person on disability allowance for going to physiotherapy?

Someone reported my friend for benefit fraud. She was working at a local animal shelter pretty much full time. She was cleared of any wrong doing as it was something arranged by and closely monitored by her psychiatrist.

Being accused and investigated destroyed her mental health completely. The progress she'd made, utterly destroyed. The years it'd taken to get her to that point were wiped out. Heartbreaking.

It made me realise though that the current purge on the miniscule number of fraudulent claims is not worth it. I'd rather 100 cheaters got away with it than 1 genuine person be put through that ordeal.