Would you report this? Potential benefit fraud

[Overthebow]

I’m struggling with this one, on one hand I think just leave it as everyone is struggling to survive, on the other it just doesn’t sit right with me. And I’d it even benefit fraud? I don’t have much experience with benefits so not sure. I need your thoughts! here’s the situation.

A couple had a baby a few years ago. Almost straight afterwards they split up.she got a housing association property and universal credit, she doesn’t work. He lives at his mums, has a decently paid job and doesn’t claim UC. But ever since they’ve still appeared to kind of be together. He sleeps over a few times a week, they go on days out and holidays together and she talks about them as ‘we’ and ‘us’. She’s also talked about buying a house together in the future as he is able to save a decent amount.

Couple, married or not, decide to have a child, or children. Realise it takes two moderate incomes to finance the family. One choice is that they live together in one property, both work, pool resources, and qualify for no means tested benefits. They get child benefit.

Identical sized family, similar earning power, they realise they don’t both have to work, especially if father (usually him) earns more, and has an ‘alternative’ address where he might keep a few things, gets his mail sent, and occasionally uses the spare room. His parents’ house for instance. Resident parent, particularly if the home is rented, gets quite a raft of benefits, including housing and council tax benefits and all the add ons like the recent COL payments. Big savings on child care costs and of course non resident parent’s contribution is not counted. The cohabiting couple whose income is assessed together, get none of these. Is that really how it should work?

Perhaps Universal Basic Income is the way forward.

It’s completely different. Corporate tax evasion costs billions that the Treasury will never see. Benefit fraud is money already collected and allocated.

I live alone and am on benefits. I am not sure what the problem with that is. It is not a crime to be single. Me house sharing would not cost the tax payer less.

YABU, because the DWP have a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.

Based on what you have said, it's not necessarily fraud. It's arguably "playing the system" - but at the same time it's a woman making sure she and her daughter have their own home and income.

Considering the rich play the system to the max, I can't get too worked up at a poor woman taking everything the law gives.

Its more affordable, as most young, lowish earners know, to share accommodation. Of course, if a single person has all housing costs (social housing perhaps) covered by benefits, there’s no incentive to share. Without knowing reasons for living on benefits, it’s impossible to have an opinion on individual cases.

Bingo!

Isn't it possible that either one or both of them don't actually want to live together?

I know couples, with children, who love each other and are in committed relationships, but value their independence and don't want to live together 24/7.

Should couples be forced to live together to save the taxpayer a bit of money?

You can't tell if it's benefit fraud or not which is why you should report it and why I would report it. You can't know what the actual situation is though so it's pointless speculating. I'd just report them and forget about it.

Why should the state subsidise the family when there is a Dad/ boyfriend involved.

Fuck that. I'd rather money go towards people who are more in need.

They shouldn't be "forced" to live together but they shouldn't be rewarded for NOT living together, if they are otherwise operating as a couple/family unit.

@Moonicorn Thing is I'm actually social minded, I'm not a Tory - but I feel really peeved for the single mum teachers and nurses I see on here or couples on low incomes but both working who get next to no benefits , if any at all , as are just over- or have a mortgage etc. many if these get peppercorn maintainance too if any.

My own personal view is that unless you have children under 5 or a physical disability that stops you being able to work or a child with a disability that means you have higher caring responsibilities then maintanance should count towards income into the house and focus on getting back to chasing non resident parents who aren't paying up for their children and partners when able. There will be less 'playing the system' then I think and yes if they want to live separately for social reasons, then all fine and dandy but let's remove the financial incentive to do so - and at the moment I feel there is one.

People are being dumb if they think they can tell whether or not the couple are committing benefit fraud or not. They look like they 'might' be and that's why they should be reported.

Have to agree

It isn't right

-There is a difference between earned money, and money other people have earned that is taken from them to give to people who haven’t earned it.

But that's exactly what i'm talking about. Hearing about this tory peer who just got awarded £300k levelling up grant to fix the potholes on his private driveway - that's not what levelling up was intended for and it's some millionaire taking money off the taxpayer. He didn't earn that money.

And Rishi is PM. It did not damage his chances.

As with many situations in life, the more you do for somebody, the higher their expectations and the lower the gratitude.

100 years ago a welfare state that gave you somewhere adequate to live, money for a basic lifestyle and free unlimited healthcare was nothing but a pipe dream. (I’ll wait for the ‘you want us to go back to Victorian times!’ responses from those hard of analytical thinking skills).

Now it isn’t enough, it’s actually seen as a ‘pittance’ and people claiming benefits honestly expect to be able to have takeaways, holidays, Netflix, nights out. They don’t see their entitlement to enjoyment as any less than the person slogging away to put the money in their account to start with, when it is 🤷🏼‍♀️

The fact is when claiming benefits puts you on almost the same, or the same, level of lifestyle as somebody who works full time and doesn’t claim, then benefits will be the more appealing option. It’s endearing how many users of this website truly believe everyone claiming benefits are worse off because they won’t get a mediocre pension and maybe a say in their nursing home in return for 50 years of graft. I mean, wake up.

Of course he didn’t. But that’s plain whataboutery isn’t it?

It’s somebody being given taxpayers’ money. It amounts to exactly the same thing. The difference is the Tory peer doesn’t actually need it and, of course, the amount. How many year’s benefits is £300k?

That figure includes "official error" causes because the benefits agency worked out the amounts incorrectly. They are lumped in together now for newspapers like the DM to print - it all helps motivate the curtain twitchers.🙄

Actual claimant fraud is much lower.

The couple mentioned in the first post are not committing fraud, they are just playing the system.

The OP should mind her own business and jog on with her own life.😚

Next time someone says that fraudulent claims are a small number of overall claims, signpost them to this thread. The vehement defensiveness from so ma many posters shows how many people are actually on the rob. These people are justifying bad behaviour because they are doing exactly the same.

Always the default - if someone doesn’t get irrationally angry about benefit fraud it has to be because they’re doing it. I’ve never committed benefit fraud in my life, I haven’t claimed any kind of benefit for over 30 years - and that was only child benefit.

I don’t care if someone is getting a few quid more than the pittance the state deems enough to live on. It makes no difference whatsoever to anyone else’s financial circumstances, None of us pay more tax because of it, neither will any public services be improved if people don’t do it.

Big safeguarding risk, forcing single mums to have every new boyfriend move into the home. It'd be an appalling policy for that reason alone.

I agree that more needs to be done to tackle deadbeat fathers, but I don't begrudge single mums doing what they need to do to ensure that their kids don't grow up in poverty.

I do get irritated when people have kids knowing that they can't provide for them, but I'd never shop someone in. I don't see it as being my duty to do that. I've been in poverty - though never entitled to anything, because I was single and no kids - and now I'm on a good wage. I remember poverty too well to ever want someone else to go without.

So no, not everyone who disagrees with the OP is "on the rob". Everyone's moral compass is just different.

Also, if the benefits are removed, they won't be redirected to the NHS or schools. They'll go towards ferry companies without ferries, MPs' endless payrises or whatever new scheme the government thinks up to redirect wealth to their friends. If we had a scrupulous government then perhaps I would care more about those last missing pennies from Joan Bloggs, but we don't and I don't.

If there is a loophole in a system people will exploit it for their own gain It's human nature . I'm not saying it's ok or right but people will do it . Often people In places you would not think , not the stereotypes.

CMS should not be deducted or assumed to be part of benefits, otherwise you put the resident parent in a position were they could not guarantee what income they would get. fathers might not always pay or could withhold it as a form of punishment or control.

Yes that's true

However the deadbeat dads do need to pay for their children

The people who seem to claim larger amount of benefits are the ones in work (albeit low paid), or have disabled children.
As a single and childless person who is unable to work, I get less than £700 a month that has to cover everything. I have not bought new clothing in years, and all my shoes have holes in. But yes, I must be on the rob because I have Netflix and go on one or two (cheap caravan) holidays a year.
Or am I meant to sit in an empty house with bare walls?
Oh, or maybe something like a workhouse?