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AIBU?

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Original poster

..to consider shopping my friend for her benefit fraud?!

304 replies

NadiaBaggyTwat · 28/09/2007 22:01

My friend and I both work in local government. We are quite close and I have known her for years but she is incredibly bad with money and never makes any attempt to get herself back on track. Usually her mother bails her out and she just goes on spending. She is a good hearted person, but this is the one aspect of her that I find really hard to stand by and watch.

Close to Christmas, a group of us, including said friend and our DHs are going to France for the weekend. This was arranged months ago. It's costing £200 per couple and my DH and I are having a really really hard time financially at the moment (not from overspending but problems with DH's business) so we weren't going to go but friend owes me £150 from something I paid for on my card (because it was a surprise from her to her DP and which she's - obviously - never paid me back for ) and to my suprise she said "well you can come because remember, I owe you £150..."

So we agreed to go. Anyway the time came for this money to be paid and I gave her the £50 as agreed (for the rest of the £200 for her to pass on to another friend who was paying all the money in) and she said she needed at least £100.. she couldn't afford to pay our money (that she owes!) because she hadn't paid her mortgage for months. I gave it to her (the trip has to be paid for!) but really resented it as I only agreed to go because I knew we wouldn't have to find much of the money!

Meanwhile, at work she is constantly talking to everyone about her posh meals out with DP, her tanning/nails/waxing appointments. And next thing, she's whining to me about the terrible state of her finances. And she does really spend money like this.. she isn't just saying it to impress!

Worse still, despite is both working for a government agency she is actually defrauding them! For well over a year now, since she has been living with her new partner, she has been claiming as a single person (with children). This amounts to over £100 a week that she isn't entitled to!!

I have told her outright time and again she needs to stop spending money like water and on luxuries she can't afford and START declaring that she has a partner living with her and the children, but nothing changes and she says she just can't afford to declare that he lives there. (They even bought a HUGE posh new house on this basis!)

I am so upset about the whole money thing and having to listen to her day in and day out talking about what she's bought (she shops compulsively as well in v.expensive clothes shops) all the while owing me money I lent her in good faith to help her out (albeit for another extravagance.. a birthday present she couldn't afford to buy her DP)... that... (and this is really bad .. I want to report her.

But if I did she may even lose her job, bearing in mind where we work.. Not to mention her house. And I would probably feel terrible forever.

I am an extreme regular with a (very inappropriate; sorry!) name change to protect various identities.

What would others do? Please?

OP posts:
haychee · 28/09/2007 22:28

What is her attitude like about the claiming? Is she arrogant and flipant? Or anxious, aware it is illegal but cant get out of the trap?

MsHighwater · 28/09/2007 22:29

She caused you to commit to that trip which you had decided you couldn't afford because she promised to put the money she owed you towards it and then she didn't keep her end of the arrangement. That's more serious than simply not paying you back as agreed. You were more out of pocket because of the promise she didn't keep than you would have been if she had promised to give you the cash and then failed to do so.

She might have lots of good qualities but, in my book, any way you cut it that makes her a bad friend.

Original poster
NadiaBaggyTwat · 28/09/2007 22:29

Oh dear. This is pretty much 50/50 isn't it...

Paolasgirl I am tempted by your offer...

OP posts:
Original poster
NadiaBaggyTwat · 28/09/2007 22:30

Haychee I'd say she is sort of head-in-the-sand about it really. She choses not to think about it!

OP posts:
Toothyboy · 28/09/2007 22:31

This sounds like pure greed to me. Report her. She will lose her job if fraud is proven and will very likely be made an example of. At £100 per week for over a year, the benefit overpayment will be over £5000, so she will almost definitely be prosecuted.

You should report her. If her partner is using the address, it will quite likely come up on a government data matching exercise at some time in the future anyway, so she'll get caught out eventually. Even if she has subsequently declared the true circumstances, as a member of staff, the Fraud Team will still go after her for the past period.

TheDuchess · 28/09/2007 22:32

I'm not sure if they still do it but when I worked in local government the housing benefit section ran data matching exercises against the payroll. Several people were caught out and dismissed and prosecuted.

Whooosh · 28/09/2007 22:32

So instead of "shopping her",if she is so lovely,could you convince her to cme clean and in some way treat her to the odd facial etc

edam · 28/09/2007 22:33

Can'tsleep, when there are billionaires who cheerfully admit to paying less tax than their cleaners, I really don't think benefit fraud is the crime of the century. What the non-doms are doing is perfectly legal, of course, and it's an effing outrage that the government created this tax loophole in the first place. As long as there is one law for the rich and powerful and another for everyone else, excuse me if I don't join the stampede to imprison the merely feckless.

Original poster
NadiaBaggyTwat · 28/09/2007 22:34

Treat her to a facial?? I can't afford a pint of milk for the kid's breakfast at the moment! This is what makes this all the more ironic

OP posts:
haychee · 28/09/2007 22:34

I think then, send her a warning. By means of a leaflet, if you can get one that details how theyve invested in investigating fraudulant claims. Put the wind up her. If she still doesnt stop do it again. She is surely going to get a little paranoid after that?

fingerwoman · 28/09/2007 22:35

surely the more time passes the worse it gets for her in terms of what happens when they find out.
They WILL find out, so maybe sooner is better than later?

I'd shop her regardless, as I said further down. but maybe I am just hard and bitter lol

NappiesGalore · 28/09/2007 22:36

er, edam makes a very fine point.

CantSleepWontSleep · 28/09/2007 22:37

Oh yes Edam. Let's all pick and choose which laws are ok to break and which aren't, and who is allowed to break them and who isn't shall we. That will make for a much better country.

haychee · 28/09/2007 22:37

How can you say she is a friend in one breath and be willing to see her prosecuted, lose her home, her job and her dc will suffer too, all that in one breath.

Friends dont do that to eachother.

paolosgirl · 28/09/2007 22:38

I'm not joking, Nadia. The offer is still very much on the table. If you don't want to do it, I'd be happy to.

KristinaM · 28/09/2007 22:39

I dont knwo why you say she is hopeless with money

she seems to be very good with money, if she is managing to make an extra £100 a week and have an expensive house and lifestyle

law3 · 28/09/2007 22:39

At the end of the day she is your friend, she could end up in prison, losing her kids, perhaps you should mention that to her.

Caroline1852 · 28/09/2007 22:40

CAn'tsleep - do you buy the Daily Mail every day or just once or twice a week to keep you abreast of the world according to the daily mail.
I have a real problem with this. A couple of months ago I had a big dinner party for family members and the subject arose re the son of one of the couples present. He was going out with a single parent who supplemented her income by, wait for it ...... fishing. Then selling the line caught fish direct to expensive restaurants and, shock, not declaring the income to the taxman.

coppertop · 28/09/2007 22:41

Well said, Edam.

MaryBleedinPoppins · 28/09/2007 22:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CantSleepWontSleep · 28/09/2007 22:43

And what on earth does the Daily Mail have to do with this Caroline? Political persuasion has nothing to do with it. We live in a country which has laws, and whether or not we agree with them, we are obliged to abide by them, or suffer the consequences.

PeachesMcLean · 28/09/2007 22:44

Re comments earlier about choosing laws to break.
My husband does 80 on the motorway.
I paid the plumber in cash - ie no traceable tax.
I answered the phone whilst sat at traffic lights the other day. With the engine on.

All illegal. I'm not condoning benefit fraud (crikey have beeen sooooo tempted to shop one particular person myself who, incidentally, I don't think had issues about spending, just believed it was ok to do so)
but I can understand that this isn't a black and white situation.

paolosgirl · 28/09/2007 22:44

Daily Mail???? Bit patronising....

The woman in question is breaking the law - nothing to do with what newspaper you believe someone else might be reading. Big difference between tax avoidance, tax evasion and fraud.

Caroline1852 · 28/09/2007 22:45

Sadly, I feel the Daily Mail has much to answer for.

xyzabc · 28/09/2007 22:47

couldnt "shop" a friend, no matter how annoyed i was. what if she found out it was you? (do other people know what shes doing?) i would just ignore it personally. but never lend her money again.