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.

And me. ADHD doesn’t need a wheelchair, unless there are other issues. 🤷‍♀️

But, it’s Monday, and most weeks start with at least one post of ‘shall I report my friend/relative/neighbour for ‘fraud’ 🙄

I wondered about the use of a wheelchair also.

Yep my mum had carers on two seperate occssions
Once after a long hospital stay after having a stroke and that was only for a few weeks
And the second time in the last two weeks of her life when she was dying.

Wow!
I’m thinking there are so many mumsnetters with ‘friends/relatives’ who are strong, fit, lovers of adventure and holidays, as well as able to afford new cars and designer clothes etc., while simultaneously claiming eye-watering wads of benefit cash AND fooling whole departments of scrupulous benefits staff and investigators that they have serious health issues that maybe you all should get together and set up a support group with weekly meetings etc.

@Hereforadviceee How will reporting this person improve your life?

So she claimed on the basis of ring doorbell footage?

Being caught as a fraud by a video is a different thing.

Again I’ve tried to be somewhat vague.

The situation was she was told she was no longer eligible and in the process of disputing that, she started to have falls she never did and have these all on camera and have the use of a wheelchair she never did that after it was granted again, she never used. Nor was there anymore falls it just happened all in the space of like a month and then that was that.

So it was hard not to feel this was bullshit a lot of it felt staged. She would send me all of these photos and videos and it didn’t feel genuine. I have worked as carer and have family members with disabilities. I am not saying nothitn is wrong with her, but I feel it is greatly embellished and suspect fictions disorder and it seems she’s now doing the same with her child, which did result in an investigation with a family member thinking she had the condition that gypsy roses mother had. I can’t spell lol but at the time I thought it was ridiculous but the more time that went by I could understand why they could think that.

say you had a family member for example who had a child in primary school that was mostly still using nappies because they claimed toileting them was too hard for them to do, yet they could do many activities and sports a week along with regular events and gig nights, would you think mmm they probably could use that energy to sort that? It got to the point I couldn’t witness or hear about it anymore. An I will bet their child will now have many diagnoses and the cycle continues.

Im not on their socials but as we have mutual friends I see a lot of posts from sports to dinner parties she hosts or traveling holidays etc and I think judging by the poll many people see stuff like this but its taboo to ever question it. I know many people on benefits for disabilities that I wouldn’t give a second thought to it’s nothing to do with the benefits itself.

My son was in nappies untill he wss nine as hes severly autistic
It didnt stop him doing activities , sport etc.

Either report if you have enough conviction and/pr evidence that she's behaving fraudulently, but don't use it as a pretext to help stir up malign feelings towards people on disabilities - that is what people (those of us with disabilities at least) find unreasonable.

The child’s not autistic the parent is which was the basis of it being too challenging for them to do so nappies was easier for the parent.

I used to be against this but now I am in favour. What tipped the balance for me was realising that the govt wasn't serious about enforcing benefit regulations.

The politicians calculate that they become more unpopular if they actually take action than if they don't. So they just talk about it and do nothing.

After all they are spending your money not their's!

PS (how does it feel Mr Farage to have a £5m "gift" in your bank account?!)

I do not have bad feelings towards disabled people my mother is disabled.

I really hoped someone else would be able to share being in a similar situation as not my monkeys not my circus has been what I thought for a long time.

You may not, but there have been enough of these threads to know that they almost invariably descend into everyone knows someone who know someone (who knows someone etc.) who is on the fiddle and it hurts vulnerable people.

All the best, whatever you decide to do 😊.

I receive full PIP, work, am forever leaving the house and go on regular holidays. But the difference is I don't get PIP by claiming that I can't. I can do all these things with adaptations which are appropriate to my disabilities.

I vote that you should report her, including links to her social media. It is people like her that are pushing up the welfare bill and putting genuine claimants at risk of cuts. And this isn't idle speculation about a friend. You know all her circumstances.

If she is genuine she has nothing to fear.

Why not just stay out of others businesses 🤷🏼‍♀️

Maybe read the thread before making stupid comments. The OP has said several times this person has exaggerated how her ‘conditions’ impact her life….cant walk to school and needs a wheelchair and crutches but can hike up a mountain unaided. That is exactly what PIP is awarded for, the impact on someone’s life’s. This person is clearly a professional benefits claimant. She’s been doing it so long, she knows what she needs to say to get what she wants.

Also carers coming in for cleaning and making lunch just wouldn't happen.
I have a friend with significant disabilities, lives alone and recently got carer help as she had major surgery. They said all they can do is personal care. She couldn't bend to fill her washing machine and they said they couldn't get involved and said she would have to hire a cleaner, its personal care only.

Sounds like she has an illness like MS, where she has variable needs at different times. Nothing you’ve said about her supposed ailments add up with either the restrictions she experiences or the help she gets, so it sounds like a steaming pile of excrement to me.

Completely unrelated comment: strange that we are about to have a change of PM so certain groups will be positioning themselves to get popular support for policy changes. Some types of thread always seem to show up to a timetable.

That’s not true I have worked as carer and would prepare food and clean. You can have a carer or what’s called a Pa that can be funded. I worked as a self employed carer and it really was what ever they wanted as I wasn’t with an agency. This is what they ended up having in place.

I was posting in response to her allegedly getting further private diagnoses. It’s neither here nor there as PIP is allocated on need not diagnoses.

It’s not MS as I have family members with that where you can have tests to confirm
it. Every diagnosis she had had they had been no real test that can confirm that or she went private etc

If you stopped being friends a couple years ago why are you still looking at their social media and obsessing over this? Its a little odd to be checking up and knowing so much about a person's life that you supposedly haven't been in for a couple years so how do you know they even claim still if you haven't been friends for years?

As I said we have mutual friends which is why I still see what she gets up to from time to time. I’m not obsessed I’ve known this person for many years and have not acted on it.

Well perhaps you can tell my friend this as her recent lived experience is quite the opposite and social services insisted it was personal care only. So your friend is managing to get a lot of things that others cant.

So you basically haven't been friends for years yet you have people following her every move and her finances and reporting it all back to you? And that doesnt seem excessive to you?