Benefits fraud- what is the general feeling about it?

[Hadtoask]

I have changed my name and I’m posting with trepidation! I really am aware that I might sound heartless and mean. I will not be reporting this person but Im just interested to hear how other people feel about this. People may be very horrible to me and in this case I won’t be back! Sorry but not brave enough for an onslaught.

I won’t do the dreaded drip feed but I will have to be vague about a few details because I wouldn’t want the family identified.

So- a family I know had all their children removed from their care by the courts some years ago. They were a very large family. It is a permanent situation and the children will not be returning to their birth parents.

Despite many years passing the parents are still receiving benefits and tax credits for all of the children.

On the one hand I feel it’s really sloppy administration and makes a mockery of the benefits system. The tax payers are paying a lot of money in support for this family who are all in foster care. As well as supporting the parents who are on benefits. And now it’s come to light that there are tax credits paid to the parents for all of the children too.

I also feel that in some ways it’s probably this money that is holding their mother back from working. I feel she would really benefit from the structure and satisfaction of working. She has always claimed benefits and has never really stood on her own feet. She’s 40 ish.

On the other hand I feel that having lost her children she is very needy and this money will be very important to her. I can’t begrudge her anything because I feel extremely sorry for her.

I would not report this family but I definitely feel conflicted. I wonder how often this sort of thing goes on whilst there are people struggling to claim what they need.

Apologies if I sound really awful and mean. I’m just surprised at this situation and the money is not going to good use. I know this but cannot give details for risk of identifying them.

Benefits fraud- what is the general feeling about it?

I think benefit fraud is very wrong but I think tax avoidance by billionaires is a thousand times worse.

OP, FWIW I think it should be reported. That money is for the care of children - children that the state has determined are unsafe in these peoples’ care.
However, this is Mumsnet where you are a thief if you get 5p extra change and dont walk 100 miles in the snow to return it to the shop, but where reporting benefits fraud is ‘low’ and everyone should ‘mind their own business’ 🤷‍♀️

Oh for gods sake ! If its benefit fraud its benefit fraud full stop. The OP knows certain information. One call to the authorities about something very factual ..... they no longer have care of the children - and the authorities check. They either have the kids or they dont. They are either entitled to this money or they arent. Its all very bloody simple, and to the obviously looney lefts on here who think its all ok and then moan about the NHS having no fucking money may wonder why.

OP ignore anyone that tries to justify not reporting. If you are wrong no harm done. If you are correct you've probably saved the tax payer literally thousands and thousands of pounds because trust me, large families get awarded bundles when all the benefits start to accrue.

There is just not enough money to go round. Its stealing. There there are not enough hospital beds, hospital equipment, nurses, police, mental health services etc etc...report if it's true. The money needs to be spent on people who need it.

The UK is an extremely wealthy country. There is money that could, and should be spent on those things, but it’s being spent on some politicians’ vanity projects, or siphoned into massive profits for shareholders in private companies.
But it suits them for working people to point at even worse off people as the cause.

Yes, cutbacks in services are totally the result of benefits fraud. Uh huh. Pigs can fly, too. Wow. 10 years of government propaganda, I salute you! You have done a sterling job, no pun intended.

Report
Just because we can't stop some businesses committing fraud is no reason to let everyone else off too

Also, they will get found out eventually and the amount they have to repay is mounting up every week.
Keeping quiet just means they are getting further & further into trouble

My feeling is that I'm sick of benefits bashing threads.

Such idiotic comment.

Well given that you go about calling people cockroaches for having an opinion on the internet different to yours I won't pass judgement publicly on your intelligence.

Your reading comprehension though, I didn't say I wouldn't report it, if I was positive I wasn't wrong then I would (and have a duty to) but what I actually said was I can't get in to a foaming rage about it in general (as the thread was about general feelings) because it's 4% of claimants.

Far more money is lost via tax avoidance and evasion than is lost through benefit fraud. I'd rather focus my energy on what the government are doing about the people who can afford to pay their way and chose not to.

If you’re against big corporations avoiding tax (which is legal btw) then you should be against benefit fraud. The numbers spouted in here about how low it actually is, is bollocks. I work with 2 people alone doing it. Growing up in Scotland, it was rife. It seems to be the middle classes who don’t think it happens because they live in a bubble.

To be honest I think anyone who feels they need to claim welfare from the government understands their needs better than us and should be allowed to do so even if it doesn’t look 100% from the outside. It’s such a sign of weakness and inability to look after one’s self that I doubt the majority do it out of malice and I’d rather a few bad eggs get away with something that harm the other desperate people who need it.

“than harm” of course, oops

I believe that people living off benefits pay more money back into the system as a proportion of their income than those at the top avoiding tax and sticking it in offshore accounts to make more money off.

I also don't believe that many people would actually be happy with a life on benefits. Just because those committing benefit fraud seem to think they are beating the system and have a great life, I still wouldn't want to swap lives with them.

Maybe she has MH issues that prevent her from working? Many people are shocked that someone who is obviously emotionally unstable ,cant go and get a 9 to 5 job and work hard .Having all your children removed must be horrendous ! most of us here cant imagine such a scenario TBH . I would not report them either .

Benefit fraud can't be accurately reported in statistics because well, HMRC don't know about a lot of people committing benefit fraud.

If they were claiming CB and child tax credits for 5 kids say and have continued to for years (say 2 years) that could amount to £36k and that's a figure that can't be reported in benefit fraud statistics. There's also alot of couples living together but one of them stating they are a single parent living alone when they aren't. They get away with it for so long or still do and those figures are not reported either.

There's no actual figure that can be reported when it comes to benefit fraud. They can only report on the cases they've found out about. So while people say benefit fraud is very tiny and is nothing in the grand scheme of things, it's definitely bigger than the reports suggest, especially when some people get away with it for years or don't get caught at all due to falsely claiming then stopping their claim at some point

There's no actual figure that can be reported when it comes to benefit fraud.

We can say the same about tax evasion, but the government make estimates about both.

Given that people just claiming benefits are seen as scum and scroungers and that 'reform' has been the Tories aim over the past 10 years, I can't imagine the government under-estimating the amount of money that benefit fraud costs the country though by too much.

Although, I'm sure there's plenty of landlords charging housing benefits claimants higher rents and letting the LAs pick up the bill, so maybe they're not that bothered.

There will have to repay what they should not have received.

There won't be a compassionate 'get out free' option.

So perhaps you could instead ask yourself 'How much more debt should they be allowed to rack up? Or should it be stopped and a repayment plan set up now?'

Do be aware that HMRC might also prosecute, so they may have fines to add to the total they need to pay/pay back

I've had situation in a professional capacity. The mother had had her children removed with no chance of them coming back but was still claiming all the benefits.

She was utterly convinced she was entitled to it "because I'm their mother". She wouldn't have it that the money is meant to pay for their care so if you're not caring for them, you're not entitled.

We told her she had to cancel it and she said she did but we suspect that was a lie. She honestly thought you got 18 years of benefits just for having given birth to them, regardless of who was actually caring for them.

I think benefit fraud is very wrong but I think tax avoidance by billionaires is a thousand times worse. I think sexual assault is wrong but rape is a thousand times worse.

Manslaughter is wrong but murder is a thousand times worse
Stealing a pint of milk from a shop is wrong but stealing cars is a thousand times worse.

Can you not see how ridiculous that argument is? Crime is crime regardless of what scale it happens on, and the reality is that there is always something worse.

IMO the reason why benefit fraud is so protected on here is because it happens a lot more than we like to admit.

People will always come up with the “well if they struggle/it’s the kids who will suffer,” line to justify not changing their stance/living apart for the sake of benefits/not declaring x or y and truth is that some of it is likely unwitting, so people don’t deliberately think “oh I’ll defraud the system,” they think that a couple of hundred extra isn’t doing any harm in the scheme of the millions dodged by the bigger companies, except that if everyone thinks like that then it becomes more of a problem on a wider scale.

I wouldn't report suspected benefit fraud because unless I'd seen the money going into their bank accounts with my own eyes I don't know that it's actually happening. I wouldn't report ANY crime based on hearsay.

I heard about a mother who lost custody of the kids to their father and still claimed the kids benefits. Years later his new wife said she couldn’t understand why the benefits office hasn’t changed it to him as he’d had the kids now for five years!!! The office had been told repeatedly in writing. Nothing has been done.

Unbelievable. And they really struggled and needed the money to look after the children.

Sad.

You'd have to look at someone's bank statement and correspondence to work out what portion of their income is from which department. They may be getting PIP, carers allowance, discretionary housing payments, UC with enhanced disability element. Why would anyone share that level of detail with anyone?

If i helped these people at a tribunal I'd advise that the debt be written off as they should have had adequate post relinquishment support to straighten out their claim.

Not everyone who loses their child is a Tracey Connolly, some may be desperately unwell and decide their children would flourish better with parents who are not unwell.

However you word it and whatevery the reasons behind it, this couple have made and are continuing to make poor choices. The consequences of some of their poor choices (having their children removed) are in no way mitigated by other poor choices (claiming benefits they're not entitled to, if that's what they are doing).

Given the extreme circumstances that must have resulted in their children being removed, the money they are claiming would probably be better spent on supporting them in other ways.

I detest benefit fraud. I claim benefits and have always been scrupulously honest, mainly because I couldn’t sleep at night worrying about being court but also because I’m an honest person. If I could claim benefits to which I’m not entitled with no fear of getting caught I still don’t think I could because it goes against my moral compass.

Having said that, I was aware of a close family member committing benefit fraud and i wouldn’t report because I couldn’t be the one to potentially send them to prison. I guess that makes me a hypocrite.

I don't see why you're conflicted - if they're deliberately defrauding the benefit system it's clearly wrong and they shouldn't be receiving the money.