Errors account for much of the money lost. I'd prefer a few people manage to scam some cash than many vulnerable people left with nothing. Then again, how does anyone know this guy didn't win on a scratchcard? Why not concentrate on your own lives? Edit: Seriously, concentrating on such a small number of people who steal a, relatively speaking, small amount of money is really focusing on a dripping tap when your water pipe is broken.
Thankyou Yoda. Error's make up a significant percentage simply because of how complex the legislation is. For example. DWP Benefits - Will work to one set of figures, Will work to one set of legislation, Will work to one set of rules. Local Authority Benefits - Will work to a different set of figures, Will work to different legislation, Will work to different rules. HMRC - A law unto themselves. When you put all those together and the fact that as the great departments they all are, you can easily start making mistakes. Not to say that every office is perfect and it's just "**** that slips by the side" everyone makes mistakes, none of us are perfect. the DWP is far more focused on preventing internal fraud than external fraud anyway. I think you're missing the point chap. People who work (even me) can get rilled up that we can't just go into work and say "Oh well I did and extra hour here, and an extra hour there and well that's an extra £20 a week" like you can if you wanted to commit benefit fraud. They can do this, infact I see it daily where people like to blank out bank account details and transfers to different accounts (it makes you laugh eventually) just to get an extra £2 a week and it's usually bloody pensioners. If you work you can't do that... because you aren't exactly means-tested based on the hours you work usually (A tonne of us will be salary) and as such because we have the ideal that "we're paying our taxes for them to feck us over..." we think (and kind of do) we have the right to start faffing and getting our nose's stuck into other peoples lives. We don't. That's fraud investigators jobs and considering the workloads benefit offices are under at the minute the FIO's do a bloody good job with the cases they get handed. /rant
I understand the point mate, I just get a bit wound up by how the media portray benefit fraud as being a huge major problem when in reality it's not. I get wound up because there are as many cases, if not more, of people who have benefits stopped or are rejected for benefits for the most nonsensical of reasons. Personally, I take pride in working and the work I do. If some numbnuts wants to try and scam some money from benefits, well, that's up to them - I never want to be that person and I pity them for their lack of ambition and personal self worth. However, it does bother me that anyone on benefits, even those who need it most, all seem to be getting tarred with the same brush by the media. So, actually, I guess I agree in that sense that it's annoying when it affects others. Often though it sounds like some people get angry because they see a benefits cheat in relation to their lives rather than the lives of others who are really being affected. I don't mean to direct that at anyone particular by the way, perhaps that's another media driven idea that I've succumbed to myself.
You know dude I'll agree with you, I work in the system and I've seen a 91 year old lady have her DLA/Pension Credit stopped because some pen-pusher cocked something up. Several phone calls and me angry later... fixed. Here's the thing, people on benefits have always been tarred with the same brush as they're considered on the [no income] bracket of how the country works. It used to be the poorhouses and such... now it's "Benefit Culture". I'll be honest and say that everyone gets it where they're portrayed a doser if they're on JSA... sometimes it's actually a positive as it helps people be motivated enough to get into work, others it ends up being negative such as the stuff you've brought up. We're all entitled to opinions chap, that's for sure. I agree with anyone when they get angry at Fraudsters and not just on the benefit side but working within the system you realise that getting away with fraud really isn't that easy. A lot of £1 Billion would easily be attributable to silly things such as not noticing a specific piece of income included in an assessment or not removing £5 per week of childcare costs... while these things eventually come round and bite the office/officer and customer on the ass, they are taken out of context on the whole with graphs such as you posted. I adore that picture so very very much.
TL;DR, but I agree with this. It's none of my business what anyone else earns and nobody's business but my accountants what I earn. I keep my own personal business private. I don't ever talk about my earnings with anyone and I certainly wouldn't be caught dead bragging about it. When business is good I earn a decent, honest living - but I have to work hard for it. When business is bad, I have to work even harder just to get by, but I do get by. I don't have a family to support or a mortgage to pay like you might have, but I have more than enough overheads and bills to keep my nose to the grindstone no matter what. That's life, that's work. Some people have jobs that are easier than mine and pay more and on the flip side of the coin, some people would probably kill to have my job and earn what I do. I'm thankful for my job and every bit of work that I get. Until something better comes along, it'll do just fine. I'd be thankful for the jobs you and your wife have and for your family. Your friends may have more money or posessions than you, but I'm of the opinion that money and posessions aren't the key to happiness. Give me a handful of really great frineds, my family and a job good enough to live on any day. I do work all the time for people who own ridiculously successful businesses and seemingly endless amounts of money. Big houses, sporty cars etc etc... But it doesn't make them happy. Family and friends come way before money. [edit] I didn't and so didn't know they were on benefits... but the same principle applies. Be thankful for your honest job and your family. Let them scam the system if they want to, that's their problem. They'll pay for it some day.
If they get caught or reported! I'm all for not prying into other's financial affairs but if you're seriously suspecting fraud then you're on a different issue. That's not just wondering how big your neighbor's check is, that's wondering if they've got some illegal dealings which steal from taxpayers. You don't have to be a sleuth and find out for yourself what you're doing, and in fact probably shouldn't, just report it to the proper authority and let them look into it.
Surely you mean sensitive? Anyway I'm not, but since you have already received warnings from other threads due to your bs posts I thought you might take an extra minute before posting the garbage you post.
Aren't they just. For a moment I thought that I accidentally got rerouted to the Daily Mail website. Dwarfer: contribute sensibly or go away. Spaceman1: life is unfair. Should I get wound up about how after 2 university degrees and a 20-year career as an expert clinician helping people I still have to watch the pennies and worry about what is being done to my pension, while people like Katie Price and other non-persons earn millions for exposing themselves in the media as the vacuously useless, self-centered twats they are? No. Do your own time, and nobody else's. Live by your own actions and values and own the consequences.
Likewise mate, perhaps it was a bit too easy for me just to say everyone should concentrate on their own lives, in reality it's not so clear cut. I don't think it's healthy to be preoccupied with the limited number of fraudsters in relation to our own situations but I do think when decisions regarding them then affect all benefits claimants it is an issue we should be concerned about. I'm sure working in the system you've heard many stories. I just get frustrated talking to my GF who has to deal with people with serious mental health issues. I wouldn't wish their problems on anybody and yet often now it's the case they get rejected for benefits because of how the questioning system works and then have to suffer further stress appealing their case. A majority of the time the appeal is successful but by that point they have to then reapply for the following year and so they are in a constant state of worry and stress ontop of those original mental health issues. That just seems a big waste of money as well. That's perhaps a different situation though re incapacity benefit rather than JSA. As for the graph I posted to which you referred, very true, every graph and every statistical analysis should be taken with a huge dose of salt. You can't know the real picture until you see the raw data and even then you can read in in several different ways.
It's always the same. The crooks get away scot free or in this case - get bank loans, x amount of £££'s for being lazy c*nts and the hard working have to pay +70% of their wage for bills and then get further charged when gas, fuel water prices rise all whilst these benefit fraudsters get off free! WITH OUR MONEY! Round the corner you'll see a slimey copper hiding behind a bus shelter with a speedgun waiting to catch you doing 32Mph in a 30 to slap you with £60 and 3 points all at the same time, a bunch of drug dealers will be across the road making a deal in a public park!
Surely benefits are insignificant compared to people in senior positions doing idiot things: *cough* There may be a small percentage of evil people who claim benefits fraudulently, but what can be done about it that's not already being done (asking people to report them) short of stopping it completely? And how is that in any way fair on the people who actually need the support. The UK prides itself on its welfare system, we support one another in this country like very few places in the world. There are always going to be some evil people who will take advantage of those who want to help others - so what can we do about those *****? The real problem in my mind is that because of those small amount of people it makes the system significantly harder to access for those who actually need it as all these 'safeguards'. Something that is meant to make people's lives easier actually involves jumping a load of hoops and make it difficult or even impossible in some cases when they start a few levels below all the rest of us. Everyone is selfish, just to different levels. it's sad how people who ignore morality make the lives of the deserving harder. And there is always someone who has it harder, which is even sadder.
A lot of what you’re speaking about seems to be Incapacity or Employment and Support Allowance. Both of which are god-awful benefits that even I have to struggle to wonder what the hell is going on. I think the main problem with the centralised nature of the offices who deal with INCAP/ESA are that they are just that. They’re offices, far flung from those they help and people become numbers. I work with the persons directly and speak to them on a daily basis to what I need. It’s not their fault they become numbers and likewise with the Decision makers at the DWP… it’s just how a system as complex as the benefits one has to work (tragically). I understand the mental issues people have, benefits can be a pain in the arse to get sorted and I wish there was a way we could just say “Okay, Person x has Condition a, this set of benefits is to be paid until they are deemed healthy” but it just doesn’t work that way, as much as everyone wants it to. There’s just to much pre-caution and padding on the system when it comes to stopping potential fraudsters etc… The innocent get punished quite a bit for mess ups on any end. On the same note I’m quite glad they’re there as they can make sure we’re aware of potentially scumbags. 99% of claimants are great, it’s the 1% who’re idiots. RAWWWR DAILY MAIL RAWWRR! THIS COUNTRY HAS GONE TO THE DOGS RAWWR! Be quiet. Jesus don’t get me started on the level of Vodafail and their tax evasive ways. That got me rilled when you realise how much of a hit Local Government is taking and then HMRC pretty much lets them go! I agree, the system is bloated and does need cutting back and that’s why the government wants to bring universal credit in because it’ll streamline it massively. I think the main issue is that the policy makers and those who implement the policy are very different people… The later knows how the system should work, the former think how their know the system works. It tragically never does work to the ‘benefit’ of anyone. I do wish I could submit some ideas for how the system should run… but what do I know? I’m not some uni educated 50-year old earning £50K a year… I’m an early 20’s making his way in life… so clearly my opinion is automatically rendered invalid in the grand scheme of things.
A special debit style card or vouchers\stamps scheme would make sense for benefits. If you had a certain amount allocated for food shopping for example it would be better spent and you could limit it to certain items, like healthyer food no alchohol\cigarettes so at the same time you should be making people healthier and saving money on the NHS bill. I think giving people cash is a bad idea, you can use it for anything, it devalues it and opens up the system to scammers. I really don't understand why they cant put a better more controlled system in place (people at the top are being paid enough), it might cost money but will save money in the long run and hopefully cut down on abuse of the system.
This attitude annoys me more than the benefit frauds themselves, until you've been forced to live in squalor and went to sign on only because you feel it's your last hope to eat for that week and you can't look any of your working friends in the face I don't think it's fair to say that. The benefits system hands out interest free loans and grants, crisis loans, budgeting loans, social fund grants, back to work grants etc etc and that's just for single people, for couples and families the list is at least twice as long. You can literally walk in with a bit of paper asking for 1k and they will assess it and give it to you if they think it's a genuine claim. I'm so grateful for my job, but this sort of talk still gets me really riled knowing people that struggle so hard to live off benefits and either physically cannot work (yet try anyway) or are unemployable and spend their days looking for some sort of qualification to get them into work, and they are kept back at every hurdle, because the benefits office tells them if you do ANYTHING, mostly trying to get an education, more than a certain amount of hours per week then you are no longer entitled to your benefits because it is preventing you from seeking employment. That's right, getting an education is seen as a waste of time that could be better spent filling out application forms in an employers market, many of which require......an education of some sort.
Hate to say it buddy but you're wrong. The only reason I hate to say it is because it'll start a flame-war no doubt. Either way let it continue. Right, you've made the statement that these people are on the breadline OR below. Now you're whining that they get interest free loans? Claimants regularly get £15 a week (That's a lot of money for someone on IS/JSA[IB]/ESA[IR] weekly) deducted because of these crisis loans ect... sure some people take them out stupidly but they always pay them back, because that's how your national insurance works. For example, you pay back £500 out of £1500... then refuse to pay the Job Centre... no problem they just increase your tax-code now that you're working and you pay it back that way. No problem there. You want to charge them interest, wait... when did the benefit system become a profit machine? While I understand the ideals behind it... that would royally **** things up. Plus, how do you assess someone on the amount of interest they pay? Governments are working to get people on benefits OUT of debt most of the damn time. As for the jipe about education are you kidding me? The government puts people into scheme's... you can go "Yeah I'm going to go to college for 21 hours a week and work 15 hours..." you'll go onto Income Support (from JSA If you have kids) very likely and be able to claim the same figures as before and any help on fees. 16 Hours is the maximum limit for JSA entitlement, you then qualify for Working Tax Credit... What you're getting mixed up with is the amount of hours before people have to actually look after themselves and that's the level that the media loves to focus on because of how fubar it can get. I'll be honest, the generations that are most affected by the benefits system 16 - 32 at the moment seem to have this self-centred entitlement complex. "I'm entitled to this, and that, and some of that." You're entitled to nothing until someone in an office says so... This applies to work as well... do you walk into a job expected in a year to be the C.E.O or C.F.O of a company? Of course not.. you start at the bottom and work up, this generation seems focused on "I get paid **** wages for a **** job..." Then fails to grasp how the damn work ideal works. The last bit is my private rant. It's been bugging me for months now.
OK. 1. I am not whining about them taking out loans from the benefit office, rather the fact that it's so easy to just walk in and take it. That's not anyones fault but the governments for allowing it, it's not an error either, you can walk in and say I want £1,000 for furniture, clothes and a new washing machine, kthxbye. And actually it doesn't come back out of your national insurance, they deduct an agreed amount from your JSA allowance on a weekly basis and when you sign off it becomes a monthly payment in cash or cheque. Emergency tax of 25% will be taken when you sign off but then you hand in your P45 and get that back. Oh and they will also hand you a back to work grant, regardless of any debt you have, which usually equates to around £100. 2. The schemes the government arrange for these people? Really? they recently stopped offering younger people in my country any course that will earn them an NVQ and downgraded them all to VRQs. 3. If someone is happy enough to take on a course of their own arrangement, all costs covered by the student (if any) in the hope they can get a well paid job in the future and inevitably put that money back and contribute to lower unemployment figures, why tell them to stop it, do a VRQ course, keep signing on, here's an extra £15 a week, this qualification will get you a gold sticker but don't expect much more, see you back here next week to claim more.
Where's it all coming from? An overly latent benefits system (a topic already covered here before ) where it now, most of the time, would be a more viable option to sit at home and earn them than it would be to work. A lot of the time people get less money working, but I'm sure we all know that by now... And Nexxo, at least you didn't have to pay as much as I will for uni, that depends if I go.
