To ask if you've ever reported somebody for benefit fraud

[Fragmentedbrain]

And if the DWP subsequently came for them

OK, so out of all my statements, I know 4 are facts. I'm not going into detail on here about how I know, but I do.

Fair enough, you're right. I don't know if there was an investigation or not.

What happens if someone is claiming as a single partner but has a new partner living with them? I know someone who is clearly milking the system - brand new housing association house, works part time (but just over the UC band) and has two children but claims partner doesn’t live with her (he very much does!!)

No. I wouldn't know anyone closely enough to feel like I could judge whether they were getting more than they should. It's none of my business. Unless you live with someone how do you know their health conditions etc?

And people who boast openly about getting benefits they don't need are morons. They'll be caught out soon enough without my involvement.

Not that I know anyone like that. All the benefit claimants I know seem fully genuine. And have hardly any money to live on. So I feel sorry for them. Not jealous or think they're scammers.

On MN, no one reports anyone. I fact if you dare talk about reporting anyone, you will be piled on. Must be because all the vehement defenders of benefit fraudsters are ripping off the system themselves.

Wouldn’t a pip assessor go and watch the person first and see what she could do

I am not ripping off any system. I’ve been reported for pip fraud and exonerated.

I agree that 99.9% of benefit claimants are genuine and that benefit for most is subsistence level.

It can’t be the case that 99.9% of claimants are genuine if benefit fraud is costing at least 72bn?

As long as her partner doesn’t list her address on any of his financial accounts, him and the other human leech will get away with it (unless she gets reported).

Ahh okay!

so if someone reported them, what would happen then?

It's £6.5bn, you're out by a factor of ten!

And £22.7bn goes unclaimed.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2024-to-2025-estimates/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2025

https://policyinpractice.co.uk/publication/missing-out-2024/

Investigative powers include e.g gaining access to car insurance, DVLA records, all bank accounts to scrutinise Direct Debits etc. 'Living togethers' take longer to build up a case and can involve recording movements etc.

Ah, I see! Interesting :) thanks for the info

You have no idea if the DWP investigated or not. They don't tell yoi

So do they investigate every claim /report as assume must be lots of people ringing in and saying a&b live together or c says doesn’t work and claims uc but actually dies work but gets paid cash etc

There's a ton of research on it.

If you choose to believe anonymous ramblings online over government and academic research, that's up to you.

you will often see on MN that most people know someone it's weird people fall for this sort of unsubstantiated stuff, it's no wonder scams work so well!

It seems the people that know someone who is committing fraud always know exactly what they are claiming for, why, and how much they get.

Link one paper. Go on, I dare you. One independent academic peer reviewed paper that claims to have comprehensively estimated the amount of fraud occurring with benefits such as PIP. DWP figures are clearly completely bonkers and they haven't utilised a methodology that would even begin to estimate fraud in this area. I would absolutely believe my own actual lived experience of this and anecdotal accounts on the internet rather than believe there is no fraud going on at all. So many people know this can't be true from judging what their friends and family are up to and yet they are consistently gas lit and told that none of this counts. Bizarre!

All we can do as a society is rely on 'unsubstantiated' accounts until someone conducts a study that uses a methodology that would realistically identify fraud being undertaken by people that for obvious reasons won't openly admit to it and don't leave an obvious evidence trail for the DWP to find. The DWP figures are basically unsubstantiated because they realistically will only capture a percentage of the actual fraud so are likely to be massively under reporting the issue. Ok this thread, you can see that smart people register bills to their parents house when sneakily living with a partner and are careful about financial mixing. It is very very difficult to catch this kind of fraud without some pretty hardcore surveillance.

The trouble is, the people that claim to know someone is committing fraud do not know all the facts, and more often have no idea how the benefits system works.

PIP is not means tested, yet there have been people on here go on about their neighbour on PIP who has a nice house and nice car. Or they have seen them go out when they know that this person has said that they struggle to leave the house (people can have good days... you are allowed them). Or their wheelchair using aunt has been seen out dancing at a wedding (ambulatory wheelchair user).

Regarding working on UC. You can actually work on UC. You can earn certain amounts which varies depending on if you have housing costs or not. The cash in hand thing is different, but would you report someone who is not on UC but works cash in hand on the side to avoid paying more NI/tax? Probably not.

And there is a myth that you can't have a partner stay over for more than 3 days a week. I had a Google about this and there is no limit at all. It is more about sharing living costs etc. But some comments on other sites were saying that you can't have anyone stay over at all, and you can't even have a takeaway with them. So how many people are calling up DWP to report the single mum across the road who has her boyfriend round a few times a week to watch a film and share a pizza? All based on myths about the benefits system.

Then people moan "nothing was done". For starters, you wont get told about any investigation or outcome anyway. A Google (AI answer) says that 85% of reports are false. But if you report someone, even if they are doing nothing wrong, then they will have their money stopped and be caused a lot of stress, anxiety and hardship. Some people lose their homes.

There have been people on here who were reported for fraud when they are not even on benefits.

@Marshmallow4545, they do investigate. As you're so interested, you might find this enlightening:

https://edri.org/our-work/shedding-light-dwp-uk-investigation-surveillance/

The DWP employs an estimated 5,000 full-time investigators. You could do some FOIs of your own to find out how many, and how many personal surveillance operations they conduct in a year.

I've seen someone sitting in a car outside my flat for days in a row, presumably investigating me or a neighbour for some kind of fraud. This has happened more than once.

I strongly doubt your idea that the DWP underplays the amount of 'overpayments'. As the linked paper highlights, they actively promote the belief that half the nation's scamming benefits. You don't see endless tabloid coverage and scummy reality shows about the £billions of 'underpayments', do you? Ever thought about why?

Maintaining the narrative about extensive benefit fraud supports the DWP's moves towards ever greater investigatory powers; as described here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-authorities-fraud-error-and-recovery-bill-2025-factsheets/dwps-information-gathering-powers-in-the-public-authorities-fraud-error-and-recovery-bill-factsheet

It was sad, the client had a learning disability, and was really quite vulnerable. She was also very likeable, and used to do things like walk old people's dogs and go to the shops for them.

After the appeal, someone on the housing benefit team told me that none of them believed she was committing fraud, but they had no choice but to suspend her housing benefit because the shit of a housing officer was quite senior, and had raised it at a senior level.

This isn't a peer reviewed paper. The EDRI isn't impartial and has a clear agenda. It isn't really a useful source in this discussion. They have a clear motive to overemphasise how much surveys going on and the purpose of it to forward their aims as an organisation.

Nobody is suggesting the DWP don't do any kind of investigation into fraud but 5,000 FT investigators to preside over 22 million benefit claims isn't exactly comforting for those of us who suspect fraud is more commonplace than the stats suggest. Simple maths suggests that your idea that people are commonly under survey by these officers is simply untrue. There aren't enough Investigators to even begin to do this for the vast majority of people. Grater investigatory powers shouldn't frighten people that are doing nothing wrong and want to see public money spent properly.

@XenoBitch
A Google (AI answer) says that 85% of reports are false
This is a complete misrepresentation of what is actually stated. There is no separate figure for how many benefits fraud reports are 'false' but the figure represents how many reports were proven false or couldn't be substantiated with sufficient evidence. This is fundamentally different to what you are suggesting and as a society we need to be very careful about this. We know for example that less than 3% of rape claims lead to prosecution and this is often due to lack of sufficient evidence but this absolutely doesn't mean the claim was false. Just because a prosecution doesn't take place or action isn't taken this doesn't mean the claim is false or someone has lied.

Of course the world of benefits is complex and people may report fraud when there is none but the nature of this kind of fraud means that friends and family are often best placed to whistle blow on those committing fraud. I would argue we all have a moral duty to do this assuming we have done sufficient research about the benefit in question and have access sufficient information to know beyond reasonable doubt that someone is committing fraud.

I've got nothing against greater investigatory powers. The more efficient they can be, the fewer claimants' lives will be ruined by their money being stopped while the machinery grinds slowly through the process.

People don't seem to realise how much info the govt is already authorised to collect, and the EDRI provides a summary in one place. I once got a letter asking for an explanation of an unusual credit to my bank account.

As I said, I'm not opposed to DWP investigations. I am opposed to fulminating busybodies reporting people based on wild assumptions. They actually do ruin lives.

If you want more details about DWP procedures, do an FOI.

But some things wouldn’t be caught by info the govt has access to would it? They’d only be caught by someone reporting them - for example a neighbour who knows two people live together (and are claiming single rates)