Reporting historic benefit fraud…

[Poofet]

I lived with my friend, her partner and their small child. I started living with them 15 years ago, and lived there for 9 years. I moved out 6 years ago.

To cut a long story short, my friend and I have fallen out due to some pretty poor behaviour over the years on her part. We have had a very on and off again friendship for years. This morning during an argument, she was sending me abusive text messages, and within one I received this morning she has said, ‘You didn’t pay enough rent when you lived with us, so I had to claim as a single mother to support myself through benefits.’

Obviously, this is absurd. I am now worried that I could be implicated in benefit fraud if I do not report it and it somehow gets discovered, I could be considered to have been part of this. Do the DWP / police even care about historic benefit fraud? Is this something I should be reporting to protect myself?

Only the person who signed the declaration each year is liable (her) .

She is foolish using it as a threat when she’s the only one who would get into trouble if DWP found out.

i know I haven’t been part of the fraud but the police or benefit office don’t know that!!

Was she living with a partner, taking your rent and then pretending it was a just her and her child living there?

Personally I would report because I hate thieves.

People are weird about reporting theft on here though 🤷🏼‍♂️

If you report it, just be safe in the knowledge that it will not have any effect on your person, and that it never would have anyway, as your "friend" is the only one who will potentially be heavily fined, or sent to prison, which will then affect her innocent children. It's your call.

Block her and forget her. The govt agencies barely ever look into current benefit fraud and tax evasion - they get huge numbers of reports but take action on very few. Unless you were involved in her benefit claims in some way, then there's no way it'll come back to bit you on the bum. She's the one who made the claims and signed the claim forms - any come back is entirely on her. Just as long as you weren't making any joint claims or any of your own claims!

Having said all that, I'd probably report her anyway as I hate BOTH benefit fraudsters and tax evaders and have reported various people for both over the years, despite knowing that there's virtually no chance of my reports being acted upon in any way. It's all just a numbers/statistics game. At least if suspicions are reported, if the number of reports becomes large enough, it may drive governmental action to increase efforts to address the problems on a societal level if not an individual level.

that is what she was doing.

she wasn’t threatening me, she was having a go at me about how she felt I never paid enough rent or bills during the years I lived with her, and that she’d had to do this benefit claim basically as she didn’t have enough money.

It doesn't matter! Not your claim, not your problem

No, I wouldn't. You got nine years of Iiving in her home paying low rent and she has a DC. I do not condone benefit fraud I wouldn't be reporting in your circumstances. Legally you may not suffer from reporting but socially you may suffer from being viewed as the scrounger that put her in this position.

Not a police matter, and you were not the claimant so not to blame for any benefits SHE misclaimed. Don't allow her harassment of you to feed your paranoia. I am 100% certain this is none of your business, so just block her and do nothing else.

You want revenge and to hurt her OP. It won't make you feel good.

You got a decent ride for nearly a decade. Let it go.

What a scumbag she is.

You are in the clear. No sane person would believe your false piety.

IF YOU ARE ON UNIVERSAL CREDIT
The situation for Universal Credit claimants with lodgers is almost totally different as the rental income you receive is not counted as income but your lodger or lodgers also don’t count when your bedroom entitlement is calculated.

I don’t want to report her but I will if there’s anyway I could get in trouble for it it which there doesn’t seem to be based on what people have said on here

You are being silly now.

Why did you live with your friend for 9 years?

Report it, too many people get away with benefit fraud and many people on MN seem to condone it, anyone who even thinks about reporting someone is 'spiteful' or nasty or taking food from the children etc, but the benefit cheats are just thieves, however much people try to gloss over it..

well, you will definitely get in trouble for it if you report her, because they'll definitely know then and if she's going down she'll probably want to take you with her

started when I was 18 and I couldn’t afford to live alone, I also had big debts. I’ve known her since we were kids. I got my own place once I was stable and could afford it

She should be reported - this is theft!

And theft should be a police matter but of course it ‘reporting it’ is just to jobsworth civil servants who won’t bother - too much effort.

It’s her claim so her issue. You didn’t know kingly enter into fraud nor did you benefit from it. As others have said I seriously doubt she’s going to dob herself in.

As someone else said, personally I would find it hard having that weighing in my conscience that she had broken the law, that I knew and then didn’t do anything about it. Unfortunately I kinda live in a world where we can’t just pick and choose the laws we want to apply to us when it suits us (and yeah I get you didn’t do anything wrong and you can leave well enough alone but two wrongs don’t make a right).

But to your point, I don’t think there is anything to worry about.

Why not go the whole way and report her to the DWP for benefits fraud, the council for council tax and possibly housing benefit fraud and HMRC for failing to declare the income she 'earned' from your rent payments?

Surely time to block contact and live your own life. Revenge is overrated.

The only person who gets in trouble for a false claim is the person who signs the form.

Thats one of the reasons it's quite a common thing for abusive partners to do - I've known several cases through citizens advice where women want to leave, but the partner is holding over them that they'll report for a fraudulent benefit claim (usually where it hasn't been changed back after a previous attempt at separation failed).

Even if you were in on it there's no means to prosecute you as you didn't claim anything, didn't declare anything.

I hate when people claim single parent to get extra benefits, like they have no comprehension of what it’s like to live like a single parent yet they claim and have their partners finances and live a nice little life.

but I wouldn’t report them, no. It’s historic and you seem to only want to do it out of spite because you’ve fallen out. They done you a favour and allowed you to live with them and what she said might have been true. I’d just leave it and move on with your life

So she let you pay her a pittance while she fed and housed you and treated you like part of her family for almost a decade and this is how you repay her? You have zero evidence of what she was claiming and for how long but you're happy to go running to HMRC and tell on her to protect yourself from them despite them not even knowing about it? You're appalling.