Another moral dilemma

[abitunsure]

I would be interested to see what the views of mners is on this.

I have an acquanitance I have known since school - not a friend of mine but a good friend of a good friend.

She went through a terrible time about 10 yrs ago when her h left when she was pregnant with dd2.
She lived in a house that she had paid the mortgage on that was in joint names.

When they were divorced, equity in house split 50:50, she stays until children leave. Fine.

She gave up work when had dd2 (understandably!!!) .
Her ex, however, has never paid her a penny. She won't provide his details to the CSA - tells them she doesn't know where he is. (He does see the girls but lives in another part of country and contact is not regular). They now have very friendly relationship.

She has been on benefits ever since. Her ex retains a 50% share of a house on which the mortgage has been paid by either her in the very early days, or the state subsequently.
He by the way has worked on and off but now has very well paid, but insecure, work

She has been with her dp for at least 5 years. He lives with her but this is not disclosed to the benefits agency. He has a good job and is away with work a lot.

I should add that I have only recently moved back to the area. Plenty of people know about this but everyone just turns a blind eye.

You are a wise lot. It morally wrong but would you do anything?

And, of course, she is guilty of fraud. Which is serious.

I wouldn't do anything, she is not working and her dp has an insecure job. She has not married so she can't expect her dp to cover the girls expenses and her exh has never paid her a penny. Why to report her, because there's a man staying at home some night of the week? because there's a very very narrow chance that her exh helps with the expenses?.

It is a dilemma isn't it. On one hand it is hard to be totally sure of the facts in a given case, but then it is down to DWP etc to investigate.

Personally I think they should be shopped (Chandra - at the very least the exh should be contributing), but whether I would do it myself is another matter. Whilst this goes on it breeads a culture that says it is OK to defraud the state because no-one gets hurt. When people are caught out, at least it makes them think about things.

One of my friends was recently reported for working whilst on bens. She's assumed it is her ex who reported her, but seemed to take it as a fair cop. It's not as if you will be harming the kids etc, who in any event need a decent example.

OOps re reeding your message I saw that is her exH who has the job now, not the DP!!! that changes the things though.

I was about to post a simmilar thread some weeks ago, a person I know was going through divorce adn her soon to be exH said that he was going to give her, per year, nearly 20,000 for the care of her 2 boys plus an extra 10,000 for her own expenses, he would also covered all the expenses of the house.

She went to an association to ask for help about how to deal with the divorce and without her asking about it they offered nearly £1000 per m. in benefits, she asked if they were sure and they said that it was OK (don't know though if they knew of her agreement with ex).

I confess I fel a bit as I had tried to start a business but went to bankupcy because I couldn't afford to pay for the nursery. I wanted to work and there was no help available for my situation and she was there just telling me that she wanted to spend the benefit money in garden decorations for her next outdoors party, or giving me the lecture about why expensive things are better -nice, knowing I could not afford them-. I thought it was totally unfair. At the end she is not getting the benefit anymore, I don't know why, I don't know if somebody reported her...

I don't know if it is morally wrong, because of not knowing the full facts of the case. Why has she told the CSA she doesn't know where xp is, what's in it for her?

Also, her DP may have lived with her for five years, but who knows how secure she feels with him? Perhaps next month he could drift off leaving her alone? And does he actually live there and contribute to her household expenses, or is he just going round to have sex with her several times a week and putting up the occasional shelf, which seems to be the modern arrangement from observation of some of the couples I know...

I wouldn't do anything without knowing an awful lot more about it.

The reasons she hasn't informed the CSA are 1. that there is nothing in it for her - she gets the ragular money from the DSS whether ex is working or not. 2. she just doesn't want to rock the boat with ex.
Her dp does live with them. tbh I think its more than 5 years. He has a flat of his own which is rented out (to DSS!!!)
I think the arrangement is that she pays household expenses and he pays for cars (she has brand new one with personalised no plates!), meals out, holidays (approx 6 weeks abroad per year) etc.

There was a similar thread to this recently. I agree with ladymuck that this sort of thing does need to be stopped because at the moment everyone thinks it's OK. It isn't. If she is living with someone who is working then she doesn't need benefits. What she is doing in effect is taking money away from someone else who hasn't got enough money to feed their children or put their gas fire on, so that she can drive a new car! State benefits were not intended for people to have flash cars & nice holidays.

No, I wouldn't do anything. Because:

You don't know the arrangement between her and her ex but if he's never paid her a penny, as you say, then his job now* is completely irrelevant I think. She's not benefiting from it, is she?

• You don't know what money her dp gives her, if any. It may be that he doesn't contribute and sees it as her children, her house = her costs - he may not be supporting her in the way you seem to be assuming. If he's away with work a lot (as you also say) then maybe he isn't classified as living with her either. We've had a thread on this here but I can't remember the upshot from an IR/benefits POV on how often someone has to stay with you for it to be considered cohabitation.
• You don't know the arrangment with bills/food/other expenses and therefore you can't comment. As someone else says, just because they're together doesn't mean it's a secure and permanent relationship and that he's paying his way.

But mostly I'd say it's none of your business. I don't even necessarily think what's going on is morally wrong (as you state), I don't think these things are always black and white and without knowing more I think it's difficult to make those kind of statements.

I'd be happy to report benefit fraud if I thought that the level at which benefits are paid enabled families to live with dignity and social inclusion, and so therefore there was no reason to cheat. But as long as benefits are paid at the immorally low levels that they are, I just can't blame anyone who does cheat - how else do they survive?

It would be lovely to think that the money collected from stopping cheating would be put towards making benefits higher for the socially excluded who really need them, but in the real world I think we know that that just does not happen. So I personally would leave well alone, unless I was absolutely certain that the circumstances were such that the family involved really were career fraudsters and would not end up destitute and desperate if I reported them.

I agree with www. I'd definitely leave well alone.

And maybe she is afraid that if she contacts csa her ex will get teed off and stop contact with the chidlren and she doesn 't think that's in the best interest of her children.
Or as www said, things might not be quite what they seem. My dh used to give cash child suppport to his ex and she didn't tell benefits agency about it, just saying that she didn't know where he was. In the end she decided that she wanted more than what he was giving as in her mind he had a good well paying job. She went to the CSA who contacted dh and had him fill out lots of forms. Turns out that in fact they decided that given his AVERAGE earnings and various other factors (we had just had a baby) he didn't have to pay anything at all. So dh's ex lost out on the money she had been getting from him, because he refused to do anymore cash payments once she'd gone to csa.

SofiaAmes, that is absolutely shocking. He didn't have to pay anything at all? For his own children? Even my deadbeat ex in theory has to pay a fiver a week for our two children (though in practice he doesn't), even though he is unemployed. I thought that the whole principle of the CSA was that absent parents still have some financial obligation towards their children, however token.

I suppose that might be the reason for her not wanting to rock the boat - being a boat-rocker myself, I couldn't see it before!

My understanding of the whistle-blowing route was that the DWP/DSS just made further investigations based on what has been reported - they don't just assume that the caller is 100% accurate. So if in fact everything is above board there won't be a problem.

Hmmm. I was going to agree with www and scummy and say leave it, until I saw that she has a brand new car and expensive holidays. Benefits shouldn't be subsidising that sort of lifestyle

But how do you know the brand new car is actually hers? Maybe it's her DP's? And how do you know the holidays are expensive? Maybe they are cheap on the internet - I got a storming one recently, £140 for 2 weeks accommodation, plus £85 for flights and £200 for 2 weeks car hire - for 2 adults and 2 kids. And if it's not a cheapie one, chances are her DP is paying, not her, and she wouldn't go if he wasn't. It's so easy to think other people have got more money than they actually have, but appearances can be very deceptive. I know that some of my neighbours think I'm loaded or a benefit cheat because I'm a single mother with a car, a poshish voice, an au-pair and no visible means of support. But I bought the car from redundancy money, work from home so it's not obvious that I work, and au-pairs are the cheapest form of childcare there is. The fact that I recently had the cheek to go on holiday - with my au-pair! - has added to the rumour mill around here. But I'm paying for it very carefully from interest free credit - and I don't see any need to tell the nosy blighters the details. I'm sure I've been reported to the DWP numerous times!

I think it probably comes down to whether you feel that this woman is such a career fraudster that it's your social duty to report her, and whether you are happy to be the type of person who does ring up the agencies of the state to inform on your neighbours. Having had some experience of East Germany (some very dear friends of mine had copious Stasi files on them and were constantly spied on by their neighbours), I personally feel a real distaste for the idea of individuals spying on each other and reporting each other to the state, unless I suspect the individuals involved of doing something really dreadful, like child abuse or terrorism. But I do accept that there are some people who are career fraudsters, and that they deserve to be shopped. The problem here is trying to gauge whether this woman is one of them.

Meanbean, that's exactly the point i was trying to make. Although dh's ex had decided he had lots of money, in fact the majority of what he/we have is mine and my parents. We live in a very large house compliments of my parents (decided to invest in the uk property market) and I have carefully saved my wages since I was 16 (not exaggerating) and a setttlement from my first marriage so that we can afford a higher standard of living than what we earn would allow. (we earn so little that we get wftc) Dh's ex sees this and thinks that she is entitled to some of it. When I said before that dh stopped giving her cash payments, it doesn't mean that he stopped looking after his kids. He drives 2 hours each way every other weekend to see pick them up. We take them out to dinner all the time. I frequently buy them clothes and we take them on nice holidays and buy them any extra school supplies that they might need. I pay for his children to go on any school trips that they ask about and have paid for several private assesments and various other things for the children. Yet none of this is enough for dh's ex as she sees my "nice" car and thinks dh ought to buy her one (she can't drive). She see's my children's "nice" clothes and thinks that her children ought to have the same, but forgets that my children's nice clothes are generally either 2nd hand or from asda or primark and she threw out (i'm not kidding) the things I bought for her children from "those cheap stores."
And you are dead right about holidays. I book mine a year in advance so I can get a good price.
Anyway all of this is to say that appearances can often be deceiving.

I really agree with you Meanbean in "I personally feel a real distaste for the idea of individuals spying on each other and reporting each other to the state, unless I suspect the individuals involved of doing something really dreadful, like child abuse or terrorism."

(sorry for the quote, too lazy to paraphrase)

It is very much like complaining of a police state while is the public the ones that enforces it.

Surely most of your information is based on gossip? If she is not a good friend of yours, you are just going by the gossip of one of your friends (who seems like a terrible friend for telling you all of this personal information!)

I would not do anything just incase she is not doing anything under hand. What an awful lot of stress and hastle to wish on somebody if she is infact not guilty of anything. I would have to be 100% sure and even then I am not sure if I would grass anybody up, especially as she has children and this will impact them to.

You are putting yourself in the position of being a judge of what is morally correct and that is quite a position to be in. There are always grey areas.