AIBU to consider reporting someone I believe is committing benefit fraud?

[Hereforadviceee]

Would you report someone for benefit fraud?

Just that. It’s someone I used to know quite well but drifted apart from mainly due to this and from time to time I feel angry that they have made a living out of coning the system and quite often people around them. They claim they can’t walk or leave the house but go to at least 6 countries a year and do a mix of sports regularly they post online.

It hits a nerve as a lot of my family members are genuinely disabled and have struggled to get the right support. This person doesn’t have to pay council tax has every benefit you can think of and will literally use a wheelchair whenever their pip stops then go back to the sports and hiking holidays they do regular whilst claiming they can’t work and they even have been awarded carers to come in and help them. I’ve known this person for nearly 2 decades and they started this in their teens and would often brag about it and how to do it and even helped other friends at the time get awarded benefits so it’s not a case I don’t know them enough to know it’s bullshit. I always thought they would grow out of it as their life progressed.

I don’t think I actually will mainly because I’m so worried they would guess it was me and they are known to be very vindictive such as reporting people to social services or emailing job places to try ‘ ruin people ‘but I guess I’d like to vent as myself and so many people work their socks off to break even each month.

The posts get more, and more elaborate. The circus sports activity is a new take though. Very inventive!!

I don’t really get what I would get out of making this up. An yes I’m trying to be vague about the exact activity’s as again I’m worried they will read this.

I have ME. It is a fluctuating illness. People with ME do use wheelchairs and it can definitely be the case that some days we need them and others not. Although I am surprised about the mountain climbing. Are you sure she is walking up these mountains or could she be taking some kind of transport up?

I look incredibly fit and well and my social media looks like I have a very active life because I take photos of myself in beautiful places. They are often by the roadside and someone will have driven me there. I have a friend who thinks I am exaggerating my disability. I am not. I have conversations with her along the lines of her telling me I must be able to go to X Museum because I went to Y Museum. I then have to explain to her that I took a taxi to Y Museum and paid the price for the effort by spending the rest of the day plus much of the next day in bed recovering. I cannot take a taxi to X Museum because it is too far away…… it’s very frustrating that she doesn’t believe me.

i also have ADHD, autism and POTS. All invisible. All very debilitating.

As others have said, the application process for PIP is incredibly rigorous. I had to apply three times because my application was refused the first two times. They find the craziest reasons to turn you down eg I moved house due to domestic abuse and, according to them, that proved that I did not have fatigue and so essentially my ME diagnosis was incorrect. I was on the Homeless Register!!!

However, if you still think your friend is claiming fraudulently then definitely report her. It is anonymous.
https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

Report and it will be investigated. Either way the truth will be found out. It’s not as though people don’t do this.

Who knows what a person would get out of making things up, it happens though. I could not imagine wasting so much of my precious time, ruminating over what a supposedly ex friend was doing.

If you think it is benefit fraud report.

getting carers is very very hard and SS usually assess in person (or it’s the six weeks reablement after hospital).

how on earth does anyone fake being deaf? I can’t help but react to things I hear.

Deep down I feel they have fictious disorder. I have close family members with disabilities and worked a carer for clients that had a lot of what she claims to have and I saw day to day how it affected these people. I don’t think it’s case she has nothing wrong with her but I have seen over the years how she would exaggerate every condition and claiming to be deaf when she can hear what you are saying was reaching. Yes she will climb mountains and do treking holidays without any aids. She used the wheelchair once and then never again and I remember asking and she said she didn’t need it. I worked for clients where I would have to take it just in case or some weeks then not the next.

I don’t think I could actually bring myself to report her. I’ve just seen over the years how it’s progressed. I’ve wanted to be vague as she uses this platform. She works a few hours a week from home and has a carer come in two mornings to help make her food as she has claimed her Austism and adhd make it hard for her to remember to do these things. I think I reached breaking point traveling almost an hour to go to her one morning as she couldn’t take her child to school and I got there and she was just trying to buy some gig tickets that came on sale and was more frustrated she didn’t get them then her child being sat downstairs not at school.

I have reported the same person twice as I know for a fact she is, it's never even been investigated.
She's always lived with her various boyfriends despite making single benefits claims, her children are supposedly on the spectrum, but are as good as gold for anyone else looking after them, she told them how to behave to get the award as her closest friends boys have ADHD autism and bribed them with treats to get them to behave that way. She's a despicable human, can't go out the house to take her boys to school but can take a 4hr train journey to meet random men! It's unbelievable people like this get away with it!

I don't think you should be reporting anyone if you can't get your facts straight. So many inconsistencies and inaccuracies with your posts.

Again I’ve tried to be vague with some of the details rather than list the exact sports and illnesses. That’s not unheard of on mumsnet. But again I’m prob just a disability basher who grew up being my mums carer.

I get full PIP for autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, hypermobility, urinary incontinence and myalgic encephalomyelitis.

I probably could hike up a mountain. I occasionally use a wheelchair too because of how my symptoms manifest inconsistently and doing something like climbing a mountain would give me post exertional malaise.

It isn't about what you can do its about whether you can do it repeatedly, safely and in a timely manner and on most days.

I've also been offered a cleaner and a personal assistant from my adult social care assessment.

I also struggle with the school run because it is busy, noisy, and unpredictable. My uncle comes with me and we are allowed to go in later before registers are completed but after everyone else has made their way in.

I also can't cook meals. I can, with extreme pain, difficulty and with an extremely long time period. I have several OT reports showing the same thing as well as multiple appointments to walk ins and A&E with burns and cuts that have happened in the kitchen.

I think you're on shaky ground to be honest. You don't seem to understand how these disabilities manifest and the challenges they cause.

Before you report you should do some research on these disabilities and see how intelligence isn't a factor in one's ability to complete these daily living activities. You can be perfectly intelligent and still be disabled.

fgs just report and let the dwp investigate rather than throwing shade but refusing to report.

https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

There are undoubtedly many people playing the system; tale as old as time.
That said, maybe it'd be better to focus on improving your own contentment (when you're content with your own lot in life, you tend not to notice/feel angry at how other people are faring).

You are clearly convinced her claim is fraudulent so please report her. It is anonymous.

Although I am surprised with that list of diagnoses.

I’m not trying to say being intelligent isn’t a reason she’s not disabled but I think she has played the system from her teens and strongly relies on this to support her lifestyle which in large, is many physical actives and holidays traveling abroad.

I understand to some degree through being a carer with much of what she claimed to have. But this is where I struggled when it came to things she wanted to do it never got int the way, but say a friends birthday or event, 9 out of 10 times she couldn’t even with the offer to collect and drop home it was never possible and after many years of seeing a lot that didn’t add up. I do think as humans we can sense a con and that’s what it felt like.

I do not think I would actually report her as I don’t think it would change anything but it’s something that doesn’t feel right.

I used to live with her back in the day and she would talk me through what she does has she claims for more and that you have to exaggerate and explain you can’t do things unisted so it’s not like I’m going purely off a gut feeling.

Mind your own business

I have done for many many years.

Autism and ADHD can indeed make it difficult/impossible to prepare food or remember to eat or drink, irrespective of intelligence. Maybe research this.

Your friend may or may not be gaming a system that is notoriously difficult to game, but you seem to lack an understanding of how health conditions can impact different people, who aren't your mother.

And again you don’t get PIP for diagnoses.

Yes most definitely. I have done this before and reported because I feel its very unfair. My partner who worked for the same company for two decades was fired from his job after a hospital stay during which he nearly died. The colleagues that worked under him tried to takehis job. Despite having paid into the system for 35 years he was not able to claim benefits.

They absolutely do.

Housebound' benefits cheat caught at gym classes - BBC News

Would it make you feel better ? I think you would have feelings of self loathing after because no matter what gloating satifaction it would temporaily give you you would have to live with the fact that your freind would possibly go to prison. Thats of course if she even exists and you havent started this thread just to bash benefit claimants. They also like you said would possibly know it was you.. personally its something i could never do. Unless of course you have the guts to not do it anonymously ..... theres something really icky about anyone prepared to do this. just my opinion

STOP LOOKING AT THEIR ONLINE POSTS IF IT BOTHERS YOU SO MUCH. ITS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

I suggest you sit stick with that
Gut instinct is notoriously unreliable for making decisions which is why we have processes and procedures and the Dwp has a manual the size of your front door of guidelines to make decisions based on

No I don’t think it would make me feel better. I’ve always hoped someone else would. As she has a child this is main reason I don’t think I could go through with it. She was a very close friend and due to this I had to distance myself in the end. I have benefits myself I am not a benefit basher. I work and have universal credit help.