Bizarre Benefits Fraud Excuses Revealed By Government

[exiges]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13587434

Ministers have tried to highlight the impact of benefit fraud by publishing some of the more unusual excuses used by people found guilty of cheating.

Reasons include carrying ladders as therapy rather than for cleaning windows, and claiming an identical twin had been doing work rather than them.

About £1.6bn is lost through benefit and tax credit fraud each year.

Some disability groups have warned the government against exaggerating the scale of the problem to justify cuts.

One excuse revealed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was: "I wasn't aware my wife was working because her hours of work coincided with the times I spent in the garden shed."

Another false claimant said: "We don't live together, he just comes each morning to fill up his flask."

One excuse revealed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was: "I wasn't aware my wife was working because her hours of work coincided with the times I spent in the garden shed."

Another false claimant said: "We don't live together, he just comes each morning to fill up his flask."

In a case highlighted by the DWP, a man from Yorkshire claimed nearly £17,500 to look after his sick father - but had to admit to lying when his father revealed he had not seen his son for years.

In another instance, a man claimed more than £55,000 in disability benefits while he was working on a dairy farm.

Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud said benefit fraud was serious, yet investigators were "routinely dealing with bare-faced cheek and ridiculous excuses for stealing money from the taxpayer".

"It's bad for the system because it drives it into disrepute. We want to spend the money on people who genuinely need it," he said.

"People stealing it for themselves means there is less money to go to where it is really needed to reduce poverty in this country."

Lord Freud said the introduction of Universal Credit would simplify and automate the benefits system, and make it much easier to catch people who made false claims.

But Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said: "The government really has to stop over-simplifying the debate on welfare and using unusual fraud cases to support changes which could have a serious and negative impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

"We'd like to see the government put as much effort in to finding disabled people long-term sustainable employment."

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13587434

Ministers have tried to highlight the impact of benefit fraud by publishing some of the more unusual excuses used by people found guilty of cheating.

Reasons include carrying ladders as therapy rather than for cleaning windows, and claiming an identical twin had been doing work rather than them.

About £1.6bn is lost through benefit and tax credit fraud each year.

They should have added:

"It started in America"

"This is temporary liquidity issue, not one of solvency"

and

"There will be martial law on the streets, if the bailout doesn't take place."

£1.6bn whilst waste and a fraud is frankly chicken feed when contrasted with the fraud conducted by the City of London and other banks.

[Princeofpounds]

One of the things I always struggle to understand is why the disability charities are always pitched against any tightening of the assessment process for benefits.

Are they *really* concerned their clients will be taken off benefits? I mean I can understand it perhaps if you were a 'bad back' charity but Scope quoted here for instance are a cerebral palsy charity. Would be hard to misdiagnose that you would think.

Or is there a political slant to this?

If I were disabled I wouldn't want to feel solidarity for cheats.

[Blod]

Interesting that the BBC is running with this. Very Daily Mail.

All fraud is crime. However you do wonder why the government isn't tackle the corporates about their 'avoidance'. From an efficiency point of view a few relatively minor tweaks of the tax system would release at least £1.6bn. Where as tackling this fraud has a high cost in both economic as well as political terms. I wish the state would be as keen to tackle immigration fraud which often threatens of very safety.

[Blod]

One of the things I always struggle to understand is why the disability charities are always pitched against any tightening of the assessment process for benefits.

Are they *really* concerned their clients will be taken off benefits? I mean I can understand it perhaps if you were a 'bad back' charity but Scope quoted here for instance are a cerebral palsy charity. Would be hard to misdiagnose that you would think.

Or is there a political slant to this?

If I were disabled I wouldn't want to feel solidarity for cheats.

+1

The problem is assessment, CP as an example can deteriorate rapidly which can and sadly

leave claimant uncared for. The charities are comfortable to take the view that a lack assessment is a better solution when although more costly, a system that would be initiated by a GPs request would be better for their care.

Atos, the company used for a lot of assessments has a dreadful reputation for getting it right. In the past they've passed declared combative client unfit to work whilst claiming some quite unable fit to work. They were working to targets rather than on a case by case basis.

Edited May 29, 2011 by Blod

[mdman]

When will they initiate a similar campaign for the banking fraudsters who have swindled us out of trillions?

This is bread and circuses for the proles. F*** the Beeb

[hedgefunded]

When will they initiate a similar campaign for the banking fraudsters who have swindled us out of trillions?

This is bread and circuses for the proles. F*** the Beeb

Exactly.

[boynamedsue]

When will they initiate a similar campaign for the banking fraudsters who have swindled us out of trillions?

This is bread and circuses for the proles. F*** the Beeb

I also wonder how much is lost through tax fraud every year, I bet it's a hell of a lot more than 1.6 billion. And that's before we look at loopholes...

[We’re all in this together]

One of the things I always struggle to understand is why the disability charities are always pitched against any tightening of the assessment process for benefits.

Are they *really* concerned their clients will be taken off benefits? I mean I can understand it perhaps if you were a 'bad back' charity but Scope quoted here for instance are a cerebral palsy charity. Would be hard to misdiagnose that you would think.

Or is there a political slant to this?

If I were disabled I wouldn't want to feel solidarity for cheats.

When you become disabled you may no longer struggle to understand. Being genuinely disabled is a struggle in itself, without having to cope with the bureaucratic challenge of tightened assessment, the reality of which is in my experience a forest of form filling - you know where the department of work and pensions is coming from because the forms always contain advice where to find help filling them in. No sense of irony, these guys.

The worry, and it is a big one, is that these initiatives are first and foremost purely cost saving initiatives, and as such go for the easy targets first, which inevitably means the most helpless. The experienced fraudster, and no doubt there are many out there, is actually a slippery customer. It's much easier for your jobsworth bureaucrat to hit his monthly targets by picking off the weak and vulnerable.

Hope that helps.

[ken_ichikawa]

I also wonder how much is lost through tax fraud every year, I bet it's a hell of a lot more than 1.6 billion. And that's before we look at loopholes...

About £550bn..... because all taxes are fraud anyway.

Unless you think :

Gimmie your money, why? If you don't I'll break your legs.

Is an excellent way to run the country.

[Mr Jib Fingers]

When will they initiate a similar campaign for the banking fraudsters who have swindled us out of trillions?

This is bread and circuses for the proles. F*** the Beeb

Not sure I buy this argument. Yes all the banksters should be shivering penniless in jail, but that doesn't mean that any other government waste has to stop until they've been sorted out.

If people are pretending to be ill to get benefits then it needs to be stopped at some point.

[Mr Jib Fingers]

About £550bn..... because all taxes are fraud anyway.

Unless you think :

Gimmie your money, why? If you don't I'll break your legs.

Is an excellent way to run the country.

Yep. After a doubling of tax take in a few years under Labour, which has since been entirely squandered the answer is apparently to tax even more. As long as there are any people left that are still even slightly well off then they'll be calls to tax them more until there are none left.

[geezer466]

One of the things I always struggle to understand is why the disability charities are always pitched against any tightening of the assessment process for benefits.

Are they *really* concerned their clients will be taken off benefits? I mean I can understand it perhaps if you were a 'bad back' charity but Scope quoted here for instance are a cerebral palsy charity. Would be hard to misdiagnose that you would think.

Or is there a political slant to this?

If I were disabled I wouldn't want to feel solidarity for cheats.

You forget about the facts that there are well paid employment opportunities at the medium to top levels of management in Charities.

[_w_]

Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud said benefit fraud was serious, yet investigators were "routinely dealing with bare-faced cheek and ridiculous excuses for stealing money from the taxpayer".

"It's bad for the system because it drives it into disrepute.".

Oh the irony. Was he talking about himself or his party as a whole?

[crash2006]

Oh the irony. Was he talking about himself or his party as a whole?

There is more fraud by proportion by the MPs then benefit claiments, and by proportion they took much more, so who are the really thiefs. A MP went as far as because he was gay, or i didnt know it was fraud and got away with it.

[Democorruptcy]

Why don't the benefit fraudsters stand up in the job centre and apologise for their "mistakes" like MPs do in parliament?

Wouldn't that make it OK?

[Milton]

There is more fraud by proportion by the MPs then benefit claiments, and by proportion they took much more, so who are the really thiefs. A MP went as far as because he was gay, or i didnt know it was fraud and got away with it.

Exactly.

Ministers are describing 'Benefit CHEATS' when the desciption is MUCH more aptly applied to themselves.

Ministers are disgusting thieves who have refused to repay HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF POUNDS.

Years of PERSONAL PROFITS gained in a secret expenses system.

When a Freedom of Information request was made, in 2009, Labour formed a three line whip to try to block Ministers expenses from the public domain.

Sir Ian Kennedy, chairman of the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) ruled that Ministers should repay profits on their second homes.

However, that only applies to gains from November 2009!

So profits from massive House Price Increases UP TO November 2009, were locked in.

HPI was all cream for our elected officials.

[Profits from second homes needed to be backdated to 1997, or the beginning of an MP's tenure.]

The truth is that there was never any political will to enable the average person earning average wage to be able to afford an average house in a rising unregulated market, under a secret expenses system, where MP's were all flipping houses, making hundreds of thousands in personal profits.

Not one MP represented the 'average' constituent during the boom.

[Probably why my own Labour MP ignored my emails asking about house prices for years, before turning up on the front page of the Telegraph, for making over £200k in housing profits, just before selling her taxpayer funded house and retiring]

It is not just that they used our money to profit, and paid no tax on the gains, it is also that it created a dangerous conflict of interest that meant that voting for policies which fed the house price bubble, for so many years, such as keeping IR too low for too long, CGT etc, switching Housing inflation from RPI to CPI, etc etc also generated personal profits for them, in secret.

In any other profession this would be a criminal offence. It is market manipulation. Far worse than insider trading.

***Its also worth reporting that the VI BBC actually reported this, with the headline, "MINISTERS REPAY PROFITS ON SECOND HOMES"

Some question's that spring to mind are, do Ministers think Joe Public is as thick as a steaming pile of p1gshit?

Do Ministers understand that they have absolutely ZERO credibility? And NO moral authority WHATSOEVER?

Do Ministers understand that most people have the Internet?

Do Ministers care, as they know that there is nothing Joe Taxpayer can do about it?

Would Ministers be shocked and upset, if they returned home one night to find an angry mob of taxpayers, sick of being stolen from, who had burned their F@cking house's to the ground?

**Answers on a postcard please**

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edited May 29, 2011 by Dan1

[_w_]

There is more fraud by proportion by the MPs then benefit claiments, and by proportion they took much more, so who are the really thiefs. A MP went as far as because he was gay, or i didnt know it was fraud and got away with it.

Our leaders show us all how it's done. To then lecture us about it is ironic in the extreme.

[_w_]

Why don't they just introduce compulsory euthanasia for the disabled and stop all this pussy footing around. At this stage the Nazis already had the f*cking camps built.

More government inefficiency. :angry:

We're in the 21st century, I'd expect a technology similar to that described in Minority Report: you would identify future disabled claimants, UKIP voters or supporters of hard money and order a forced abortion before they are born. Think of all the money wasted in raising and educating them when all you want is for them to disappear.

[Olebrum]

These are almost as bad as "you need to give us trillions of dollars otherwise the world will end" lines

the banking syndicate use.

[Bloo Loo]

1.6bn is NOT lost...its a stimulus..its helicopter Ben in action, handing money to people to spend in the economy.

[ingermany]

The shocking thing is that 1 in 10 people of working age in the UK are certified as permanently unfit for any type of employment, that is entitled to incapacity benefits. It is just not credible, because when you look around you just do not see that amount of physical or mental incapacity in society. I'm not blaming the claimants. There was a very clear political decision to reduce unemployment by giving incentives for people to be disabled rather than unemployed. It was all part of the smoke and mirrors of the UK "economic miracle"...low inflation, steady growth and full employment. It was a complete sham. I remember that in the Soviet days political activists were classified as mentally ill in order to remove them from society. This is what UK did to its long term unemployed. They were told to consider themselves disabled and given extra cash to keep them quiet.

[leicestersq]

I also wonder how much is lost through tax fraud every year, I bet it's a hell of a lot more than 1.6 billion. And that's before we look at loopholes...

Another "the bankers stole a lot more so this fraud is ok argument".

Well it isn't ok, it needs to be dealt with. And anyone that thinks fraud for benefits and taxes is as low as 1.6 billion per year needs their head examined.

[Alba]

Our leaders show us all how it's done. To then lecture us about it is ironic in the extreme.

With all the troughing that is going on by ministers, MP's, councillors, CEO's, etc, it leads to a society where benefit cheating and other scams becomes endemic, and the society spirals downwards.

The Blairs, Browns, Camerons, Obamas et al don't have a moral compass it is all self agrandisement. These politicians, public figures, and royalty etc are all flaunting their lavish lifestyles.

Don't do as i do, but do as I say is seen fully for what it is.

It is like scavengers around carrion. The big beasts feed first, and the smaller ones rush in as and when they can to snatch a morsel. The big beasts then bare their teeth at the small fry.

[FirstPost]

A banker, a Daily Mail reader and a benefit claimant are sitting at a table sharing 12 biscuits. The banker takes 11 and says to the Daily Mail reader: “Watch out for the benefit claimant, he wants your biscuit”

(Banker could just as easily be substituted with MP)