Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Other subjects
Original poster

OMG Have I done a terrible thing! I'm Shaking

98 replies

Kidstrack2 · 13/06/2005 13:53

I have just shopped my sisters ex man into benefit fraud! Its a long story but I feel he has really deserved it! He undermines my family as we don't have a car and we don't go on many holidays, but thats because we are a low income family paying all our taxes for him to claim full benefits and work on the side! Oh I get soooo angry at him.

OP posts:
HappyDaddy · 15/06/2005 12:12

ninah, which is why a lot of people don't report crimes. Fear of recriminations.

SaintGeorge · 15/06/2005 12:13

You don't have to give your details though ninah - they push the Crimestoppers number all the time.

Original poster
Kidstrack2 · 15/06/2005 12:15

For all interested I shopped this particular low life down right scumbag because he is just back from 4week trip to Australia and the place where the sunami was! For goodnesss sake we are trying hard to save for our wedding in cyprus next year and its part of my dp taxes that pays for this low life to sit back and take all benefits thats going where there is nothing medically wrong with him that he can't work. I absolutely have nothing wrong with people on benefit that needs it, I have needed it at one point in my life too! But for him to bum to everyone what he has and what he is going to get makes me mad! I am not the jealous type at all but this bully has controlled my sister for far too long!

OP posts:
justalurker · 15/06/2005 12:18

expatinscotland,

Did u shop this overseas student because he/she was working or claiming benefit? Just wondering

Original poster
Kidstrack2 · 15/06/2005 12:23

Jambo my sis was saying last night that now they have been caught out, he is still claming for their ds and now he is claiming child tax and working tax for him now too! And he will just work 2 nights per week! She is too scared of him to say the child lives with me so I am claiming for him! He is not to pay any money back to the DSS as they couldn't calculate the amount he earned as a delivery driver or counter staff! So in a way he has won yet again as he has got away with it. I wouldn't like to calculate the thousands he has made over the last 3yrs! and doesn't need to pay any of it back!

OP posts:
JoolsToo · 15/06/2005 12:24

good on you kidstrack2

expatinscotland · 15/06/2005 12:25

Suffice it to say that international students who are NOT EU/EEA nationals are NOT allowed public funds, at all. Full stop. That includes tax credits, Child Benefit and the like. These are all clearly designated public funds and the DWP website spells out very clearly who is eligible - permanent residents of the UK, UK nationals and EU/EEA nationals.

Non EU/EEA international students are permitted to work part-time during term and full-time at holidays, whilst their spouses are permitted to work full-time as they see fit. If they cannot support themselves on this w/o recourse to public funds, then they have no business studying in the UK.

Their visa clearly states 'No recourse to public funds'. If some bureaucrat doesn't catch that and awards them public funds, they're still breaking the law and violating their visa, b/c it's THEIR responsibility to figure out what a public fund is, especially someone w/a PhD education who is a native English-speaker.

MrsDoolittle · 15/06/2005 12:26

Good on you expat!

ninah · 15/06/2005 12:31

I am going to think again about this. I do know someone who has been bugging me for ages who claims housing benefit and works on the side. I have been tempted to do this, but if I am honest the main motive here WOULD be spite, so I am resisting the temptation.

SaintGeorge · 15/06/2005 12:38

At the end of the day does the motive matter? - he is defrauding the system and should be reported.

SaintGeorge · 15/06/2005 12:39

he/she - didn't mean to make assumptions.

edam · 15/06/2005 12:56

Expat, I do sympathise with working people who struggle to get by - but this was a thread about benefit fraud. What troubles me is Rickman's point about the shop a scrounger helpline being an open encouragement to spite (although that obviously doesn't apply to Kidstrack2).

Tissy, as for employing accountants, there's nothing wrong with that as such. It's just that there's an imbalance here. Middle-class or wealthy people have the resources to minimise their financial contribution to society without the need to cross the line between playing the system and outright fiddling. So I don't think we are in any position to pick on poorer people. Yet that's what promotion of 'shop a scrounger' with no corresponding 'shop an expenses fiddler' etc. does, IMO. Personally I've never fiddled my expenses, btw!

oliveoil · 15/06/2005 13:00

I don't agree with grassing people up either, don't know why as I don't agree with benefit fraud either. Would just stick in my throat.

edam · 15/06/2005 13:00

Wow Kidstrack, the man has the luck of the devil. Not surprised you shopped him - even though I'm generally anti-shopping he really does sound like an a*se.

rickman · 15/06/2005 13:01

Message withdrawn

Prufrock · 15/06/2005 13:02

I do kind of agree with edam and rickman here, but think there are degrees of fraud. My mothers cleaner has 2 young kids, no fathers around (one has just come out of jail) and so claims housing benefit and income support. She cannot work legitimately as she just could not find a job which would leave her better off after childcare/loss of HB. She was working as my Grandmas carer, legitimately, as Mum didn't mind her having her kids with her, or leaving G'ma for the 5 minute walk to pick her eldest up from school. But since G'ma died she can't find another employer prepared to do that. So she claims, but still earns about £30 a week doing Mums cleaning and ironing. I know it's wrong, but life is still a huge struggle for her and I would never consider shopping someone like her.
People claiming IB and then working full time though really do pee me off

rickman · 15/06/2005 13:03

Message withdrawn

rickman · 15/06/2005 13:04

Message withdrawn

sparklymieow · 15/06/2005 13:07

Actually this is something that is playing on my mind, a friend of mine has 2 daughters and one is servely disabled, they are claiming IS, CTC,full HB and council tax benifit, her DH is also working cash in hand. I have told her time and time again, that what she is doing is illegal but she isn't listening. I would feel terrible about shopping her because she has a disabled child.......

ninah · 15/06/2005 13:07

A part-time declared job and a cash in hand 'business'. I am not going to do anything, would make me feel rotten about myself.

Caligula · 15/06/2005 13:07

I think there's a hell of a difference between lifestyle benefit fraudsters and the situation you describe, Prufrock.

I also think that if we got rid of all benefit fraudsters tomorrow, not one person on benefits would be better off. Does anyone really think the government would use the extra money to give those who are on benefits an income which would be compatible with dignity and social inclusion? Call me a cynic, but I doubt it.

ninah · 15/06/2005 13:10

Very good point Caligula. I doubt it too.
I concur with Rickman's earlier observation that these reports can have mixed motives

Original poster
Kidstrack2 · 15/06/2005 13:10

I can def tell you nothing was above board as my sis is still friends with him and she told me everything but the fact was he never hid it from anyone as he is such a bum. Its not the first time he has been caught this man is 32yrs old and has never went out and had a full paying job he just prefers to sponge of the DSS while everyone else does the decent thing and goes out to work to earn a living. And as for my sis she deserved it too! I only found out last night she was working on the side and I told her straight YOU DESERVE IT she said I know just didn't think I would get caught was her answer. Her ds's are at school full time from 8-6 every day so if she wanted a little part time job during the day she could of done it without committing benefit fraud! She knows how I feel about the whole situation.

OP posts:
tiredemma · 15/06/2005 13:10

i know someone very much like the lady that prufrock has just described, I would never grass on her as I feel that the only people who will suffer from it are her young children. Obvioulsy that is for the woman to worry about herself but i couldnt live with myself knowing that i had caused probs for them- who am i to judge?

edam · 15/06/2005 13:12

Agree with Caligula re money lost to fraud wouldn't be reallocated to genuine claimants anyway. IIRC the amount lost to fraud is estimated as much less than the amount that goes unclaimed by people who are actually entitled so I don't think the taxpayer/treasury actually loses out in the end. It's just that some of the money goes to the wrong people. But that's capitalism for you, she mutters...