Incapacity benefit fraud - is it really this common?

[CountessDracula]

Following on from the DSS housing thread I really can't believe that people who are capable of work sit on their arses on incapacity benefit for years and years with no review or attempt to get them into work.

Is this true?

If so it is bloody outrageous

I have an aunt who claims IB and has just been given a forty quid a week allowance for a mobility car. Basically, she apparently has a bad heart, although it doesn't stop her from going in to town every weekend with the girls and getting drunk. Makes my blood boil

Mobility allowance is separate isn't it?

you cannot get a mobility car on incapcity benefit.

that is part of DLA which is made up out of two parts, care componant and mobility. you can get a car with the mobility componant,

dont be too quick to judge those with bad hearts, when dh was first dx it didnt have that much impact on our lives tbh.

benefits and work

a good site for anybody needing info or advice or a good rant about IB/DLA etc.
maybe yomama is really tony blair

Don't know, I know absolutely nothing about it. I know that for years she was claiming DLA and got found out she was doing it fraudulently and got taken to court and had to pay it all back - at about two quid per week. She got away with thousands, now she gets IB for her "bad" heart, which, according to her, pays for her nights out and now she has this Mobility car which she pays for out of a forty quid a week allowance. If yo can't guess, I don't particularly like her and alwaysnduck in shop doorways if I see her

To get motibility you have to be on higher rate mobility section as part of DLA. It is completely seperate and also quite often a pain in the arse to get regardless of how much you need it.

most days dh could walk. until the day he swelled up overnight with fluid retention and could even stand without becoming breathless

most cases very sad

Misdee, forgive me, I am not criticising those with genuine bad hearts and I know you and your family has gone through so much (hope all OK at the moment, sorry have not caught up lately with many of the goings on on MN) but I know for a fact there is nothing wrong with her. She finds it hilarious that she gone found out a few years back and now they have given her a car.

but how can you fake a bad heart. to get DLA etc they would need reports off her specialists?

fiofio, if u apply for IB but cant get it cos u havent paid enough national insurance ,but are still found unfit for work,then they pay you income support instead.
DLA is a different benefit altogether.

But she brags about what she gets and how it pays for her nights out on the booze and even holidays! Well, if she has a dodgy ticker then she is on borrowed time the amount she drinks and she doesn't need a car because she doesn't work and my uncle drives, who also doesn't work, who also has a bad heart (he had a triple heart bypass about 10 years ago).

NP, one particular person stands out from the Dundee office, has done the same thing really - coz he knows the system inside and out, he knew how to run rings around it, all the office know that he is working the system, and when he meets them he is blatant about it, but hedoes everything within the law there is f**k all they can do

i have known transplant patients who have never faced upto the fact they are ill and went out with a 'bang' living the life before they got ill. its upto them really

IB can cover all sorts of things - I got it for several weeks because I didn't qualify for maternity pay (hadn't been in the job long enough)

But they live 5 mins walk from the hospital and as I said he has a car too. Its all beyond me tbh. I think I'll go back and bury my head in the sand . I just find it so annoying.