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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to report FIL for benefit fraud???

63 replies

cantmummyhaveabreak · 01/12/2009 11:14

FIL is clearly fiddling the system, he used to be a successful buissnessman and has had a bad turn of events with the credit crunch and lost his buissness. (am i even spelling bussiness right? so many 'S's' i'm getting blurry vision)...

Anyway he is on the sick now even though i know he shouldn't be, he is working his own small stall on a market but has just gone bankrupt. Has lost his house and is now living in a council house and on sick benefits, with S-MIL classed as his 'carer'...

I'm really annoyed, i know he shouldn't be running his own bussiness (the stall) when he's getting sick benefit, and on top of that he's doing his usual seasonal work over xmas which i know will get him a lot of money.

DH said he's keeping out of it but just hopes he'll get caught out. FIL has done a lot wrong by DH in his childhood and DH has just got past caring now.

AIBU to make an annonymous call to report him? I mean if someone googled his name they'd see his seasonal work come up anyway!!

OP posts:

differentID · 03/12/2009 11:26

I would shop him. Including the fact that if they google his name, the seasonal work comes up.

There is a vast difference between the OP's situation and the one Hando described.

Original poster

cantmummyhaveabreak · 03/12/2009 12:50

Hando- i can kinda understand why you wouldn't shop your friend...

But DH's dad isn't in this situation at all- he is in a council house and 'bankrupt' because he's somehow swinddled it so he can get away with not paying his debts. He is earning 24k per year PLUS taking benefits.

We are on that same 24K as a family of 5!! we are paying our mortgage and feeding and clothing our DC's- we have money but not much. A lot less seeing as he conned us out of £25k...

Was speaking to DH last night about this subject as it's been playing on both our minds since we saw him at the weekend. DH actually said if it was anyone other than his own father he'd do it, he openly said he actually wants someone to do it for him but wouldn't know who to ask. He doesn't want friends to know what an idiot his dad is so wouldn't ask them. I kinda got the idea he might have been hinting at me to do it... He openly said he's happy to never see him again with this on top of everythign else he's done in the past.

OP posts:

Jux · 03/12/2009 12:56

Please go and read 1984 by Orwell. Please. Then think very carefully about grassing people up.

StrictlyKatty · 03/12/2009 13:03

I'd report him in a second.

Georgimama · 03/12/2009 13:03

Jux, the only parallel with 1984 you can possibly be referring to is when the chlidren living next door to Winston report their own father for shouting "I hate Big Brother!" in his sleep and he is taken away to room 101. What possible relevance this distopian horror fable of what a socialist/communist state can do to family relationships has with the OP's problem, I really cannot think.

I would do it, OP. But if you are going to do it you need to bide your time (so DH does not associate it with current discussions) and be absolutely sure you will never tell a soul. I can't believe how many people on this thread think someone using the Enterprise Act to avoid tax, start a new business and claim benefits fraudulently should get away with it - apparently because it's nearly Christmas. So fucking what?

Strawbezza · 03/12/2009 13:08

PM me with his details and I'll report him! This is theft.

StrictlyKatty · 03/12/2009 13:09

What he's doing is criminal. If anyone I knew was doing something criminal I'd report them. Whys should he get away with it? Does having a hard time give someone the right to steal? He's not starving to death, he's conning the system!

God I wish I knew who he was, I'd do it myself.

Tortington · 03/12/2009 13:10

kick him in the manjo and refuse him anti-depressants as well

catsmother · 03/12/2009 13:56

There seems to be 2 arguments as to why the OP shouldn't report this man:

That he's 'fam-er-lee' ...... so effin what ! If that was the only criteria, this man has shown time and again (according to the OP) a distinct lack of family loyalty, not least because he conned his own son & DIL out of £25,0000 !

That what he's doing doesn't "hurt" anyone as he's not literally assualting someone, and apparently, "the state or large corporations" can look after themselves. The state doesn't have a magic pot of everlasting gold, nor do large corporations. Every last £1 that goes to a fraudster is a £1 less that could have gone to someone deserving. The award of benefits to genuine and deserving cases, is, in theory, what keeps society ticking over in a civilised fashion as those who really can't help themselves are cared for. How many times do we read/hear of tragic situations where no help is forthcoming and/or is woefully inadequate ....... not because the powers that be are being mean for the sake of it, but because the finite public purse has to be divided up somehow. It makes me sick to think of people like this man fiddling money he's not entitled to while people with genuine needs go without. As for large corporations, sure, their profits often seem obscene but this doesn't mean they write fraud and theft off out of their profit ...... this is almost always clawed back by increasing prices which we all have to pay, including people on their uppers who are already desperate and struggling.

What do you really have to lose by reporting this incredibly selfish man ? You're not the executioner here ..... someone in authority will decide whether or not he has a case to answer. And if they decide he does, and he doesn't like it, well, tough shit, he's made his bed and all that. Would it really make any difference to your lives if he never spoke to you again ? Do you really value the relationship with him - doesn't sound like it.

Jux · 03/12/2009 14:11

Georgimama, I can only think that, like Blair and Brown, your interpretation of 1984 put Winston Smith squarely in the Baddie position.

Original poster

cantmummyhaveabreak · 03/12/2009 14:11

catsmother- very good arguments there...

I honestly think i'm going to do it. I may leave it a while (maybe till after xmas- not because its xmas though) but i think i may see what DH says about it- no doubt it will crop up again within the next week as it's really riled him too.

The way i see it is it'll be a few weeks at least between me reporting him and him finding out or something being done. I very much doubt he'd think it was me anyway, BUT even if he did it wouldn't be anything i'd be too worried about. I know DH would stand by me if i were to make the call with him knowing. If they tried to say anything i'm sure he would stay by my side.

However, should DH not want me to report him i may possibly get my mum to, she knows about what he's doing as i've confided in her about it and she didn't know what i should do.

OP posts:

Georgimama · 03/12/2009 14:18

You have to be joking Jux. I refused to get out of bed the day Tony Blair became PM and unlike 99% of MN I have never and would never vote Labour. I just can't see any similarity between the two situations whatsoever.

Georgimama · 03/12/2009 14:20

I mean, I do agree that we live in a distopian socialist state, but that doesn't make what the OP's FIL is doing excusable. He's not a renegade freedom fighter, he's a petty criminal.

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