Finally I’ve seen the light

[Shokjok]

So I’ve now ended a friendship of almost 20 years after witnessing her turn from this lovely, caring, giving person into a selfish, greedy, entitled cow. The basics are that I’ve known for almost a year now that she has been lying to friends and family. I won’t bore you with all the details but the jist of it is that she’s been in a happy long term relationship with her partner for years, she has two lovely children but has spent the last couple of years going to great lengths to fool people into believing she’s not in this relationship and she has done a lot of questionable and immoral things to ensure this happens. Well last night I told her straight. I told her that I felt sorry for her and her children and the fact that her and her partner have to keep up a pretence and have dragged their children into it, all for money. They weren’t poor and desolate previously so they had know reason to defraud the government. Their kids have been told to keep quiet about their increasingly obvious relationship and it’s not on. At first I felt a tad envious of the extra money they were getting and the fact they managed to get a council property, which we are desperate for just made it worse.

Well I had a moment of enlightenment shall we say yesterday. I realised that there was no need to feel envious, and what I felt instead was pity. After all I don’t need to hide my relationship with my children’s father. We don’t have to pretend in front of our children or friends and family etc. They might have more money and a nicer house than us at present but we have something they don’t have, an honest, respectful relationship and a relatively happy family. No amount of money can buy that. So I guess my Aibu is really just about me asking was I right to end my friendship. I cannot stand dishonest people. Don’t get me wrong I’m not making out that I’m a saint. I’ve made mistakes but the one thing I don’t do is lie. White lies to save people’s feelings yes, but outright deciept and factoring kids into it is another thing all together.

She's only making things complicated for herself, and putting herself at a massive risk. If she's caught commiting benefit fraud, she'll be dragged through the courts and while she might get away without doing time, it's likely she'll be given a suspended sentence and a huge fine (repaying everything she has been overpaid), and will be named in local papers, etc. This happened a lady who lives local to me, she was working (for the education authority, of all bloody places!) and claiming jobseekers allowance. Imagine the humiliation.

Repot them for benefit fraud if that’s what they’re doing.

I honestly don’t think she cares. She’s so hard faced. She has changed her Facebook page many times and has gone through her pictures cropping them to ensure her partner isn’t on them. To be fair I don’t normally worry about what other people are doing with their lives aslong as it doesn’t affect mine, but she’s too much. She actually had the audacity to sit in front of me and say that everything is in her name at the house ie bills and that she only allows him to leave a few things there and the rest stays at his father’a house just in case they are investigated. It’s just wrong.

She’s clearly a scum bag. I would stay well away from the likes of her if I were you.

How would she cope financially if she came off of benefits & relied on hers/her partners wage? Is she living a lavish lifestyle of holidays/cars or is she just getting by? It can be very hard in this day & age to manage. Rent can be so expensive & wages can be terrible! I'm sure she isn't enjoying having to lie & would prefer to live without looking over her shoulder... I wouldn't judge so harshly if it was my friend, & think about the impact on her children if you did report her.. they're innocent in all of this & could potentially lose their mother.

I don’t agree with people doing this at all, however do they need to do it? Are they actually living a lavish life with the extra or are they getting by..

I know someone who did this for years, it was OK until she died and he had no right to his home as he wasn't on the rent book.
Homeless as 64.

""I know someone who did this for years, it was OK until she died and he had no right to his home as he wasn't on the rent book.""

My DD's Friend has just been 'abandoned' by her DH. He built up businesses whilst they were together, she has a claim on none of them, because she was claiming as a LP. The baby wasn't his and she has lived in a bubble and now been dropped o her arse. We had tried to tell her to get a level of savings, but she wouldn't listen.

She would manage just fine as far as I can tell. She works full time, albeit on an allow to average wage but she is in a council property paying less than half what we pay in private and he partner works full time has his own business etc. That’s what I don’t understand. They do fairly well so they have no need to do what they’re doing. She isn’t flash flash as in the best cars but she is a spend a holic. She would always sit there telling me about her resent purchases.

The thing is though no matter how tough things are people still have choices to a degree. No matter how hard up I was I couldn’t put my children through having to roentend to friends and family that me and their father aren’t together. We manage ok financially but we don’t have the security of owning our own home and we don’t have the second best thing to that, a council property with a long term or lifetime tenancy. We are happy in our home don’t get me wrong but financially it stretches us and our ds and dd won’t able to share much longer and we will struggle to afford a bigger house, and that’s with both of us working!

She works full time so I doubt that she would be entitled to much in benefits if anything .

There are always lots of incorrect perceptions in regard to Council Housing entitlement and how indeed it is funded - the most common being that you have to be 'poor' , a lone parent or on benefits to live in a 'free' council house

Being a Lone Parent wouldn't have got her any extra housing points and even if it did Its not against the law to move a partner into a council house . There is also no legal obligation to inform the council (except for council tax purposes) or indeed have them named on the Tenancy agreement.

YABU to dress up judging someone's benefit fraud as some sort of epiphany where you realise what an amazing person you are who never lies.

We ALL lie, and not just little white lies. Some of us lie more than others. I don't trust people who say they never lie.

If the thread title was 'My friend is committing benefit fraud' no way would I have clicked it.

I agree with @ShumpaLumpa.

You are being unreasonable in trying to dress this up as hating liars. The fact is that you're jealous, pure and simple.
Whether your friend has done wrong or not isn't the issue here, the issue is that you sound smug, judgemental and very envious - even if you say you're not.
For a start, you know only what she has let you know. You don't know how much of a struggle her life would be without those benefits being paid to her. Don't judge lest ye be judged and all that....

Look at all the other benefit defrauders coming out of the woodwork.... report her and move on with your life. If we allow people to scam the system, all we’re doing is reducing what is available for people who truly do need it and are eligible for it.

What this comes down to is envy :

At first I felt a tad envious of the extra money they were getting and the fact they managed to get a council property, which we are desperate for just made it worse.

we don’t have the security of owning our own home and we don’t have the second best thing to that, a council property with a long term or lifetime tenancy

Yanbu op. And it's a bit strange that previous posters have suggested you must be jealous of this person??! It is possible to not agree with a person's actions and feel angry about it without feeling jealous! I would too question if I could remain good friends with someone who did this, benefit fraud has to be paid for by somebody eventually... And involving her own children is pretty low.

Look at all the other benefit defrauders coming out of the woodwork....

Query1 I'm in the fortunate position of not ever having had to claim benefits, let alone committing benefit fraud.

But well done for your thoroughly original and cutting put down.

@query. My partner works full time & I work part time & we do receive benefits to subsidise us. No shame here! But no, we don't commit benefit fraud. I just think we live in a society that makes it very difficult to get by at times & if someone is putting themselves at risk of a criminal conviction maybe they aren't just doing it because they like the thrill.

I am seriously concerned about how often and how much I agree with Danny Dyer lately.

I have to say you sound absolutely seething with jealousy op.

There are certain people i know who never have to work for anything and get everything handed to them on a plate because they know how to work the system. One relative managed to skip the housing list and got a council house by twisting a cancer scare into a poor dying, single mother sob story. Shes not single, shes not dying and she doesn't have cancer. But some bleeding heart at the council believed her lies and she was handed a 2 bed house that she now rents out for a profit because she actually lives with her baby daddy.

I can't lie i was seething at the unfairness of it all, especially as my family have been waiting years for a council house and are no where near getting one. But i gave myself a shake and told myself that her circumstances, good or bad, have nothing to do with me and wont change my circumstances.

What im trying to say is i know how you feel but you cant let it get to you. I see you trying to put a positive spin on it but it smacks of trying to convince yourself that you don't care when you do.

To those of you claiming i’m Jealous, you couldn’t be further from the truth. We do ok financially by working hard, living within our means and that’s enough for us. She isn’t doing what she’s doing because she’s hard up, she’s just greedy plain and simple.

Not being unreasonable. I had a friend that did exactly this, she lived a very lavish lifestyle in a very beautiful house. I was not at all jealous, rather more concerned about if she can teach her kids this level of deception and walk through life thinking what she was doing was ok, did I really want someone like that in my life. I told her I didn't agree with what she was doing, she claimed I was jealous of her home and car and holidays. I told her if she really believed that then that was fine.

That's the second time I've agreed with Danny Dyer!

I honestly thought after the start of the thread this was going to be about a friend who joined a MLM cult. Benefits fraud is much worse though, but only because it involves tax payer's money.

Good riddance to old rubbish like your now ex-friend.