Is it ever OK to report anyone?

[PassingStranger]

Following on from the TV licence thread is it ever OK to report for benefit fraud, car tax, TV licence, etc or does it always come back and bit you on the bum?

Would you be scared to do it?

What if a child was being an abused or a woman was being battered. Is it more wrong to ‘grass’ than to do something about it.

Thats not grassing someone up for something that has little to no baring on anyone else.

But ‘grassing is wrong’ right?

I have an acquaintance who is a bit of a fantasist and every few years seems to pop up with versions of a story that I know isn't true. In the latest version, he claims he trained in a regulated profession (100% not true but it sounds good!). He was giving out advice on social media so I had no qualms about anonymously reporting him to the regulatory body.

I don't know if they contacted him but I know he's now deleted the posts and all seems to have gone quiet.

Yes. This is exactly what happens in my street. I wouldn't notice them if they weren't blocking spaces for weeks at a time.

I live in a private road so the SORN is valid, but one neighbours son has a crappy old Subaru which is SORNED but parked in a way that means if I want to park either on the drive adjacent to my house or opposite my house/in front of the garage (we have 2 drives), it’s 100x harder because of this car. I have to suck it up but if I wasn’t on a private road I’d 100% report it.

Safeguarding (in any form ) yes I would and I have.

Benefits... I did twice inadvertently, as in I rang about something else but when providing details I mentioned other occupants.

I also report fly tipping.

So sorry that happened to you, @Garlicked . Some people are just vile.

I've supported a few clients who've been investigated for benefits matters, and one (a vulnerable woman with a learning disability) nearly lost her home while her benefits were suspended. The decision to close her claims was overturned on appeal, but she never really got over it. It broke her.

She still lives in the same place and still has the neighbours that we think were probably the ones who reported her.

I hope that anyone considering reporting what they perceive to be benefit fraud is absolutely 100% sure of their facts before they do so. And there's no rule about someone staying over more than 3 nights a week!

Traders are awful for doing this round our way, no place to sell their cars from so use up the side streets to park them, but fortunately the DVLA and Police do a sweep every so often and either remove or clamp them.

They also ticket those that get caught in the net that just haven't bothered with one or other of the legal requirements that go with owning a vehicle.

I don't know why people can't seem to understand nuance surrounding severity of thing to be reported in this thread.

Grassing is wrong unless the thing you are grassing about is very serious where people are at direct risk of harm such as child abuse is not as hard a concept to understand as some people in this thread are making it out to be. I don't understand why people are having such a hard time with this concept.

Unless you magically have access to another person's medical records though there is absolutely no way you could know whether someone has the conditions they have that they are claiming for. Many disabled people have fluctuating conditions and put on a massive act to seem less disabled then they are to the people they meet. Many disabled people have conditions where they could push themselves for a short 5 day skiing holiday and then end up in bed for 2 weeks due to how ill that made them and therefore weekly work like that isn't accessible to them. The wording of the assessment for PIP is being able to do something consistently and reliably.

You just have no way of knowing and you could destroy someone's life by reporting them.

Mean reporting benefit fraud? How is that mean ? What's mean is scamming taxpayers as a benefit fraudster

Would you feel mean for reporting someone stealing from your bank account?

@Universalsnail 'Grassing is wrong'

Grassing ?!!? How old are you? 12? 🙄

I am using the term "grassing" because that's the slang term everyone else is using in this thread. It's just a slang term for reporting. The opinion is still the same.

@Universalsnail I don't agree with the opinion either.

If I can stay on my feet through cancer diagnosis, on my own, deal with the shock & fear, carry on working through surgery, chemo & radiotherapy, commuting, losing my hair, care for my son full time then I don't see why a lot of others can't make more of an effort.

I'm not driving myself on to pay for someone less poorly than me to sit on their bum.

8 million between 18 & 64 aren't economically active. At a guess I'd say a third of those could do something (even part time) to help themselves but they chose not to.

I don't think "I did it so why can't you" is a very helpful attitude to have. People have different levels of what they can cope with and disability and chronic illness is far more complicated then that. Furthermore the system does not support people trying to do a little something with out penalising you so people end up on situations where they can't try for fear of triggering a financial crisis.

My thoughts exactly.

Abuse and animal cruelty - absolutely. Anything else, no.

There was a period where I was on benefits, lying to the job centre about applying for jobs when I wasn't. You could say I was committing fraud, but actually I was experiencing autism burnout I just wasn't aware I even have autism at the time. If anyone reported me my life would have been ruined. You never know what other people are silently going through.

Many disabled people have conditions where they could push themselves for a short 5 day skiing holiday and then end up in bed for 2 weeks due to how ill that made them and therefore weekly work like that isn't accessible to them.

If you know you're pushing yourself to such limits where you're going to end up in bed for 2 weeks its self inflicted pain.

If I didn't push myself past my limits and accept the fall out from it my entire life becomes very very small which then triggers really severe depression.

For 2 years I paced exactly as I was advised. Never doing anything that caused me a symptom flair up. I barely did anything. Barely left the house. Didn't get any better for it. Just got really mentally unwell as well as physically unwell which then made working even less likely because I was too mentally sick as well.

Deciding to not live like that saved my life. I'll take being stuck in bed for 2 weeks to experience snippets of life. So I will go for a weekend away or go to an event I have been invited to and accept the fact that I will have to recover from that.

My physical health is no better then it was but by letting myself still live life atleast I am no longer suicidal. I've never been skiing but if someone invited me to skiing in the the Alps for 5 days I would absolutely go and accept the fatigue fall out because I want to live life and not be completely defined by being sick with nothing to live for.

This idea that sick people have to just be sick and not live their lives at all otherwise they are undeserving of support is harmful. I'm not going to begrudge a disabled or sick person a holiday just because it makes them feel worse after.

This idea that sick people have to just be sick and not live their lives at all otherwise they are undeserving of support is harmful.

I would argue that it is more than harmful. It's cruel. It's callous. It's utterly immoral.

There are a lot of people on this thread who need to look at themselves in the mirror and decide whether this is where their moral compass really points.

This idea that sick people have to just be sick and not live their lives at all otherwise they are undeserving of support is harmful. I'm not going to begrudge a disabled or sick person a holiday just because it makes them feel worse after.

Can't recall suggesting you, or anyone else shouldn't have a holiday.

Yep. It is cruel

So I am meant to live a miserable life not doing anything incase some random decides to take it upon them selves to decide that I can't be as ill as I actually am or that my illness is self inflicted because I actually try to live my life a little and report me to the benefits office and completely upturn my life all because they are bitter about the poverty line level money I have to live on. 😐 It's messed up people have this attitude. It's vile.

You replied saying that if going on a ski holiday would make you be stuck in bed for 2 weeks then that is self inflicted. This was in response to me saying someone going on a ski holiday doesn't mean they are not disabled or ill and therefore is not an indicator that they are committing benefit fraud and you shouldn't be reporting people on the basis of stuff like that.

So yes you are suggesting people shouldn't have holidays if they are genuinely too sick to work as you have implied the not being able to work is self inflicted. It's far more complicated then that.

I have reported someone to the council for burning foul smelling rubbish on an almost nightly basis during the summer. The council went round to see him and it stopped. Another neighbour had already gone to speak to him and there had already been multiple posts on a local Facebook that he is on, so he had several chances to stop.

Reporting someone for no TV licence? Absolutely not. It has no impact on my life.

My DP is facing homelessness, and I can't move him in with me as I would lose my UC entitlement (and 100% relying on a bloke is bad).... so if I knew for certain that someone was claiming to live alone and claiming benefits on the back of that, but wasn't, yes I would report them.
I am too scared to have my DP stay over more than once a week (yes, I know there is no such thing as a limit), but I have already heard my gossipy neighbour talk about us.

I am a stickler for rules.... and I would report because I pay out of pocket for things that some people just think is optional when it is not.

I also nearly reported my own father for drink driving. He picked up me and my mum from an airport and was steaming drunk. My mum talked me out of it.