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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be angry at a good friend for benefit fraud...

174 replies

Treil · 28/08/2009 14:48

She is a single Mum claiming to stay at home but has at least 3 cash in hand jobs that I know of. It's not just about the morality of it, i'm also really worried about her ending up in serious trouble. The longer this goes on (4 years now) the more cash in hand work she does and the more she seems to expect and feel 'entitled' to. I have tried talking to her but she is very defensive and seems able to justify it to herself at least. It is badly affecting our friendship.

Meanwhile my partner and I are working hard, paying taxes and have the current economic climate hanging over our heads, it just doesn't seem right somehow ...

Would really like to get some perspective on this and welcome your views/experiences. I can't even talk to my partner about it because he is more wound up than me and would probably report her.

OP posts:
RumourOfAHurricane · 28/08/2009 16:36

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kittymax · 28/08/2009 16:36

I wish I could do 3 jobs. I've been on benefits for a while because I'm not well enough to work (although I'm not ill enough for DLA apparently). People I know look down on me because I'm claiming, but it's not how I'd like my life to be. I look forward to being able to go to work, provide for my family, pay my own rent etc.

Treil, it's a shame some people on benefits take the piss like your friend. I couldn't be friends with someone who intentionally claims what she shouldn't and for that length of time. I don't know whether I would/could report her myself but I would def want her to be reported iyswim.

What is stopping you from reporting her?

claw3 · 28/08/2009 16:37

True friends normally try to help each other. If you feel compelled to do something you should talk to her about how wrong it is and point out what could happen if/when she is caught.

It is her life, her buisness, her mistake to make.

theDMplagiarisedLeonie · 28/08/2009 16:37

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OtterInaSkoda · 28/08/2009 16:44

Don't shop her! Of course what she's doing is wrong but she's your friend. There are far worse leeches than her (tax evaders, for one) and chances are she'll get caught out anyway. Probably by someone who has a grudge against her.

PixiNanny · 28/08/2009 17:22

How can people say it's okay to not report her?! OP has already stated that she has tried to get her friend to see sense so that isn't an option; it's disgusting that people think they can do this! It is theft, what makes it different from any other theft crime as such? She has potentially stolen thousands over the years, why is it okay for her to do this but not somebody else just because she's a 'friend'?

Report her. We can't change this world without being the change ourselves and that means we have to bring things like this to a stop!

lolapoppins · 28/08/2009 17:28

What kind of cash in hand work is she doing to afford to keep a pony?!

I would not report a friend. I was in the same situation with a friend a few years ago who claimed incapacity for yonks. She needed it once, but recovered and just could not be arsed to go back to work. She used to get out her crutches and commode and put on pale make up when she was visited by the council. Made my blood boil, but I couldn't have reported her.

Blondeshavemorefun · 28/08/2009 17:33

agree it is theft

i know someone who was done for benifit fraud

she claimed for 4years while she was working as a nanny and had her rent, council tax and other bills paid/helped

she was reported

she got her name and face on front page of local rag, community service and and a police record (which now shows up on her crb) so she cant get a nanny job

she has to pay the money back and was around the £20k mark

but

she pays back about £10 a week and she now doesnt have a job and is claiming and guess what - she also has her rent/council tax paid for her , even though she is paying back what she dishonestly claimed

she should be banned for life for being able to claim swindle money from us hard working HONEST people

and in the OP case - she has a horse -ffs - give me her details and i will happily report her!!

PM73 · 28/08/2009 17:51

Report her,i cant believe that some people are saying to leave her be tbh.

She is a thief! Long & short of it,she is stealing from the British taxpayer to fund a lifestyle she couldnt afford ordinarily.

The benefits system was set up to help people who are in real need - not thieves.

I dont know what she is claiming yearly but i bet it would go a long way to paying the wage for an extra nurse in your local hospital.

forehead · 28/08/2009 18:07

I would mind my own business if i were you. Yanbu,but if you've spoken to her and she refuses to listen then that is her problem. I don't believe that you should report her, she will probably get found out anyway. I do however think that you should examine your own motives for wanting to report your 'friend'. Are you jealous of her lifestyle, or is it really because you think it is morally wrong?

Jux · 28/08/2009 18:12

It's piecemeal. I really wouldn't bother worrying about it. The bankers and MPs have robbed far more from the Treasury than one single mum could in a whole lifetime.

(Yes yes, I know, but honestly, why's it OK for them and not for us?)

violethill · 28/08/2009 18:23

That's a rubbish argument Jux!

For a start, who is saying it's 'ok' for the bankers and MPs to have robbed from the Treasury? Er... no one, apart from maybe bankers and MPs!

Secondly, where do you draw the line on the argument about scale of the crime? Is it ok to nick an old lady's handbag which contains only a tenner, but not ok to nick ten grand?

Should someone be allowed to get away with murdering one person, on the grounds that it's not a massacre?

I think once people start deciding for themselves which laws they want to obey and which they want to ignore it's a dangerous precedent!

Jux · 28/08/2009 18:27

Yeah, the bankers and MPs say it's OK and therefore it's OK. By extension then, if OP's friend reckons it's OK to steal a bit from the Treasury then it is.

(and it's chickenfeed).

At the moment I think that the only way to stop the big robbers is for the little robbers to use their own arguments against them.

Meanwhile, most of us aren't robbers and can sit on our morals.

Kathrina · 28/08/2009 18:27

I would report her! I know a woman whose boyfriend is 'disabled' he has a condition where his hands and feet go numb which means she is his carer! But yet this man manages to drive a car, climb a 16ft ladder to fix his tv ariel and do odd paid jobs on the side. It is a joke what they get in a week my husband has to work 6 days a week for that!!!

The list is endless what they get rent, council tax, free prescriptions and school dinners. Then they have sky tv, internet, a car and even managed to get a 10k loan??? They go to Wales every weekend and in the school holidays and yes i am jealous of the ammount of time they get to spend as a family.

violethill · 28/08/2009 18:29

So, Jux, as long as the criminal themself thinks it's ok, then they just continue..... interesting line of argument

Jugglers · 28/08/2009 18:32

It's a cop out to use the MP scandal and banking bonus culture as a means to justify stealing. It's the same as letting your child run in front of cars because the bigger kid next door does, or saying we should all lie to get benefits!

I work between 40 & 50 hours a week trying to keep our family's head above water - we are still trying to catch up on a period when DH was unemployed and I became unplanned pg (DC1 now 6). We've never received a ha'penny in benefits (mostly because DH bone idleness, but that's another thread!!)

A pony for crying out loud..... I know someone who thinks that everything should be paid for by someone else and even lied to a housing association to say that she'd split from her DH to get a house for her 2 oldest sons, supposedly leaving the other 4 children with DH (yes, and she's had 2 more since!!!!!) she no more moved than relocated to Mars. It makes my blood boil (and makes people buy the DM which is equally galling )

preciouslillywhite · 28/08/2009 18:33

What Jux said.

Plus this culture we've got into over the last 15 years or so, of government urging people to report their friends and neighbours is, I think, worse than the fraud itself

Original poster
Treil · 28/08/2009 18:34

Forehead I have never said that I wanted to report her. What I have said is that she has put me in an improssible situation by telling me she has comitted a crime but expecting me not to report it.

If I have tried explaining that it is wrong and that I am worried what the consequences would be for her and more importantly her daughter if she was caught what option am I left with? About 70% of people that have responded think I should report her, personally I think I would be a better friend if I were able to stop her and prevent the worst from happening. But she won't see sense so where does that leave me?

OP posts:
diddl · 28/08/2009 18:36

Her daughter has a pony-she´s taking the p!ss, sorry.

lizziemun · 28/08/2009 18:36

YANBU.

Report her.

And for those who think that she should not be reported perhaps you should watch this

LovelyLulu · 28/08/2009 18:38

She is wrong to do this, but there are more well-off people making much more money than her and cleverly avoid paying tax. I would leave it to her and her own conscience.

preciouslillywhite · 28/08/2009 18:40

...is it me, or is it getting a bit DM in here all of a sudden??

Jux · 28/08/2009 18:40

Well for one thing I was talking specifically about stealing from the Treasury and I don't think murder comes into that.

Perhaps if everyone who thinks they work too hard for the pittance they get were to steal from the Treasury too then something would be done about the big robbers.

I too am totally against the Gov trying to turn neighbour against neighbour on spurious grounds. Don't people read 1984 any more?

RL calls, sorry.

Original poster
Treil · 28/08/2009 18:44

Lizziemum thanks for the link, I will watch it later, might give me some ideas of how to get through to her.

OP posts:
slowreadingprogress · 28/08/2009 18:45

taking the long view, she has cash-in-hand jobs, not a career. She has a house but she will never own it. Alot of what she has now is illusory - if she is ill, for instance, in the future, her cash in hand goes. Life does have a habit of happening; she could get ill, she could have to be a carer to her partner or child etc.

Personally, I would not report but I would end the friendship.