Bizarre benefits fraud excuses revealed by government

BBC clicky

Some really bizarre excuses for fraudulent claims.

However, perhaps people will get it in perspective . As was reported on the news only 1% of claims turn out to be fraudulent. Yes, 1%.

Now perhaps people can realise they're being played for fools with the Government exaggerating the problem, as much money is wasted by mistakes made by the Benefits Agency as there is in fraud.

They're using the scaremongering to steal money away from people who need it.

Amazing how much effort is spent to stop those considered undeserving are targeted, yet when a far higher percentage of MP's fidddle their expenses or businesses fiddle their taxes it is ignored for as long as possible.

In Soviet Russia, benefits defraud you.

Seriously - our fraud problems are trivial compared to most of the world.

Well, you have consider that a lot of the word simply doesn't consider what we call bribery to be 'fraud', it considers it a perfectly reasonable method of doing business. Equally most countries outside Europe don't have anything like the welfare state, and it's a bit hard to defraud something that doesn't exist.

Jon

You say only 1%, but 1% of the welfare budget is a huge amount in total.

Yes but I suspect that if you look at any big organisation you would probably find bigger losses, but they do not have to declare them and will hide their losses in their accounts and just bill customers more to cover for it.

It's utterly dwarfed by the amount of unpaid tax we're due from big business.

But a Tory government is never going to attack them is it?

The Government would much rather that we sneered at the benefit claiming scroungers. Gives them the tactic approval needed to clamp down even harder. This kind of news story does little to help those who are genuinely in need. We are encouraged to group the genuine in with the small 1% of fraudulent claims.

Meanwhile - didn’t I read that Vodaphone have dodged another tax bullet?

I expect that the Vodafone tax bullet would have been as large as the entire fraudulent benefit claims.

The problem is that while there are some who really do not want to work, they also provide benefits to the rest of the economy. If all the unemployed were to travel to London to find work they would drive up the cost of accodation still higher, yet back home the demands for public services would fall so the hospitals would be surplus to needs but they cannot move the hospitals south. Then the staff will find London too expensive and so the pressure in the capital would increase. It would lower the value of homes in depressed areas still further making bank losses higher. So it can make sense to pay people to sit on the dole in a depressed area.

Also what about the disabled? They are being targetted by restrictions on housing yet their needs are not being met, and in the scumbag scrounger tag and it explains why the police can drag disabled people out of wheelchairs because we tolerate it, because they are on benefits.

Yes but as has been said it is dwarfed by other wastage. The disproportional over emphasis on benefit fraud over that equally wasted by the benefits agency and the unpaid and avoided taxes is ridiculous.

It's hurting those in need most, the change in incapacity benefits is already causing great distress to those with mental illness and has resulted in suicides already. This will only increase all because the Government is trying to direct the focus onto what is, in reality, one of the smallest areas of waste there is.

This looks like smoke and mirrors policy. Keep the mob occupied with some triviality while the government are busy rigging the system to suit their backers and scrapping the welfare state on the sly.

The BBC were only too keen to run an item about how the Americans do it (obviously wanting to be “on side” and thus getting Nick Robinson into the weekly press briefings). Volunteers from churches seem to carry the majority of such burdens there, companies donate through “benefits events” and so on. I would not be surprised if Cameron is using that as a template.

I shudder at the thought. I get the distinct feeling that when I die, we’ll officially be the 51st state.

Just look at how weak the US economy is. The median wage in the US has not risen since 1975 and the economy is imploding for all but the very rich.