123RF
Britons are fed up with the scale of welfare fraud and a significant number of people are willing to inform on benefit cheats to the authorities.
Nearly one in four people suspect they know someone who is committing welfare fraud. 8% of those who know someone suspected of fraud have gone so far as to inform the authorities.
Anyone who thinks welfare fraud is just about people down on their luck chiselling a few pounds from the system is sadly out of date.
In one area of London, staff went through the payroll of a reputable banker to match it with housing benefit recipients of 150 employees. 20 were found to be claiming benefit illegally.
Comparing the list of the recipient of student grants with those for housing benefits (to which students are not usually entitled), uncovered a student who was receiving funds for bed and breakfast accommodation in Birmingham and a grant for an architect course at a university in Wolverhampton. since he was on a 4-year course this little earner could have cost the taxpayer £20,000 if he wasn’t caught out.
Jailed
For 6-years, one lady from Solihull maintained that she and her three children were homeless and penniless. In fact, when she and her husband split up, she was left the family home which she sold at a profit.
As the owner of a hairdressing business, she got a mortgage to build a 4-bedroom house which she sold for £250,000. She was eventually jailed for 4 months and had to pay £1,000 costs.
Tip-off
The DSS carried out surveillance on two properties in Leicester and Nottingham after a tip-off. Using hidden cameras to gain evidence they tracked several members of the same families as their toured benefit offices and post offices across the West Midlands fiddling income support and housing benefits. A 14-year-old had drawn benefits as an adult under a false name, others claimed using the names of real people using false documents. In two years, it is estimated that they defrauded the state out of £250000.
Incapacity
Champion fraudster Simon Waters was jailed for 4 years for cheating the state out of £1,200 a week in disability allowance income support and housing benefits by faking a range of physical and psychological ailments he had claimed under a dozen identities in London, Manchester and Merseyside simply by using national insurance details of people he knew to be abroad.
Nobody knows how much the welfare racketeers are costing the taxpayers each year but the realistic estimate is 10 billion. One of the most extensive is housing benefit fraud.
A dodgy landlord with several houses of “Ghost Tenants”, fraud can soon run into thousands. In the past few years, the cost of housing benefits has doubled to an estimated 15 billion pounds and in some areas, 20% could evaporate in fraud.
The landlords don’t even have to cash a cheque the money can keep rolling into a bank or building society account through automatic credit transfer.
One rogue landlord was caught out because many of his bogus tenants’ benefits were paid into the same building society account. his forgeries of certificates varying the lower earnings of non-existent people working mainly for non-existent companies were good ones.
He was sentenced to 2 years in prison and ordered to post £1,000 costs.
Total views : 87460