Benefit Cheats

[Justforfun]

And where does it say he has not seen a doctor since 1994, you will only get disabilty benefits if one keeps submitting sick lines. Though I do agree that in certain benefits they can be awarded for life or a definite time scale before needing to provide any new evidence - but again this would be based on a doctors report. Its ok I will accept your apology:rolleyes:

 

And i think you will find that after a period of time it can be the DWP who will refer the patient to attend a medical assessment centre to be examined by one of their doctors, this doctor then refers his comments back to the DWP, this then goes in front of a decision maker to make his/her decision as to whether the person is fit or not on the basis of the report he/she has been given.

As the medical assessor hasn't seen the patient before,the patient (if dodgy) will go into the medical room with the false actions of being in pain as if his/her accident etc etc had happened only yesterday.

With regards to sick lines/notes as you have earlier stated,these are only requested for short term incapacity/disability etc, when a person reaches long term high rate benefit they are not always required to supply them.

 

It's a shame really coz the genuine one's suffer for the dodgy one's actions

[Justforfun]

When you first apply for Disability Living Allowance, you are sent a claim form to complete. Your completed claim form is assessed by the decision-maker, who must decide:

• whether to approve your claim
  
• whether you're entitled to one or both of the benefit's two components (the mobility component and the care component), and
  
• how much benefit you're entitled to receive

Decision-makers may ask for a medical examination if they need more information before they can make a decision, or they're unsure about any details.

The decision-maker can approve your claim without a medical examination if they're happy with the information that they have obtained.

Of course the information that they originally would have received referring to the above case would have been in 1994.

(The court heard that Appleby, a former coal miner, made a legitimate claim for disability living allowance in March 1994, when he was forced to give up work with a back injury.)

 

 

 

Louis would you like a cherry in your Humble pie

 

:D

[cokezero]

When you first apply for Disability Living Allowance, you are sent a claim form to complete. Your completed claim form is assessed by the decision-maker, who must decide:

• whether to approve your claim
  
• whether you're entitled to one or both of the benefit's two components (the mobility component and the care component), and
  
• how much benefit you're entitled to receive

Decision-makers may ask for a medical examination if they need more information before they can make a decision, or they're unsure about any details.

The decision-maker can approve your claim without a medical examination if they're happy with the information that they have obtained.

Of course the information that they originally would have received referring to the above case would have been in 1994.

(The court heard that Appleby, a former coal miner, made a legitimate claim for disability living allowance in March 1994, when he was forced to give up work with a back injury.)

 

 

 

Louis would you like a cherry in your Humble pie

 

:D

 

 

Also within the DLA form are sections in which the claimants medical chappies would fill in. Of course you must have a diagnosis 3 months prior to claiming, with the condition being reasonably expected to last 6 months after the date of the claim. If someone never got these sections completed it would automatically trigger request for reports from the extremelly highly paid medics who are involved with the individual. Medics I might add who are paid from our taxes.

[Guest louis wu]

And where does it say he has not seen a doctor since 1994

It doesn't, but by your logic, where does it state he has?

, you will only get disabilty benefits if one keeps submitting sick lines.

Quickly contradicted by your next statement

Though I do agree that in certain benefits they can be awarded for life or a definite time scale before needing to provide any new evidence - but again this would be based on a doctors report.

Are you 100% sure what was in this doctors report? If not (and I fail to see how you would) then your showing further ignorance

Its ok I will accept your apology:rolleyes:

LOL. but if it will make you feel better, then I apologise (I don't know what for though:confused:)

 

by the way feel free to have the last word, I won't bother replying as your type of posting becomes boring after a while. It's very troll like;-), and I don't indulge in that type of thing.

 

louis

[Guest louis wu]

Louis would you like a cherry in your Humble pie

 

:grin: :grin:

 

love cherries;)

[cokezero]

 

Originally Posted by cokezero

And where does it say he has not seen a doctor since 1994

It doesn't, but by your logic, where does it state he has?

, you will only get disabilty benefits if one keeps submitting sick lines.

Quickly contradicted by your next statement

Though I do agree that in certain benefits they can be awarded for life or a definite time scale before needing to provide any new evidence - but again this would be based on a doctors report.

Are you 100% sure what was in this doctors report? If not (and I fail to see how you would) then your showing further ignorance

Its ok I will accept your apology:rolleyes:

LOL. but if it will make you feel better, then I apologise (I don't know what for though:confused:)

 

 

 

 

 

by the way feel free to have the last word, I won't bother replying as your type of posting becomes boring after a while. It's very troll like;-), and I don't indulge in that type of thing.

 

louis

 

 

Oh Dear!

[Justforfun]

Also within the DLA form are sections in which the claimants medical chappies would fill in. Of course you must have a diagnosis 3 months prior to claiming, with the condition being reasonably expected to last 6 months after the date of the claim. If someone never got these sections completed it would automatically trigger request for reports from the extremelly highly paid medics who are involved with the individual. Medics I might add who are paid from our taxes.

 

 

(The court heard that Appleby, a former coal miner, made a legitimate claim for disability living allowance in March 1994, when he was forced to give up work with a back injury.)

 

Now on the basis that it quite clearly states that in 1994, a legit claim was made, obviously the guidelines were followed at that time by the medical examiners,so your theory above is null and void.

With regards to your remark about our tax paying for these medics,yes that's true,it's also true that our same taxes has paid out over the years to fund the above gentleman:rolleyes:

[cokezero]

(The court heard that Appleby, a former coal miner, made a legitimate claim for disability living allowance in March 1994, when he was forced to give up work with a back injury.)

 

Now on the basis that it quite clearly states that in 1994, a legit claim was made, obviously the guidelines were followed at that time by the medical examiners,so your theory above is null and void.

With regards to your remark about our tax paying for these medics,yes that's true,it's also true that our same taxes has paid out over the years to fund the above gentleman:rolleyes:

 

Look lets get something clear this does not state that he has never been seen by a medic since 1994 and yes it does not say that he was either. However, he would not have went since 1994 without having been seen, examined and then a report on his fitness given by some well paid quack. Only those with no understanding of the various other benefits he would have been claiming since 1994 would make such sweeping generalisation from a statement which really only implies when his claim for DLA started. Now if he had been awarded DLA for life, it would only have been awarded and its duration decided on the basis of some quacks report. So it does not matter how, when, who says what, etc. the fact remains this guys award would have been and continued due to a quacks report.

 

As for my theory being null and viod I would say you just confirmed the he would have been examined by a highly trained and skilled medic and so here begins this chaps long run (excuse the pun) of benefit fuelled luxury lifestyle.

 

Thank goodness may local car mechanic is not as highly trained as our friendly tax guzzling medics:rolleyes:

[cokezero]

Does anyone honestly think that if all benefit fraud was stopped completely that a single extra penny would come their way. Of course it wouldn't.

 

 

Nail on the head.

[Justforfun]

In order to claim the allowance you said you could only walk with difficulty, you needed crutches and a wheelchair. You also said you needed help with your personal toilet.

when he admitted joining the running club and agreed that by doing so there was a " massive change" in his circumstances

 

He also admitted he didn't deserve benefits

He does concede that what he did was wrong

So to continue to get the allowance, he did himself con the tax payer,and medics of fake ilnessess.

 

 

[Guest louis wu]

In order to claim the allowance you said you could only walk with difficulty, you needed crutches and a wheelchair. You also said you needed help with your personal toilet.

 

when he admitted joining the running club and agreed that by doing so there was a " massive change" in his circumstances

 

He also admitted he didn't deserve benefits

 

He does concede that what he did was wrong

 

So to continue to get the allowance, he did himself con the tax payer,and medics of fake ilnessess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with analysing this type of scenario, is simply that we don't know all the facts (and those that are printed have come from a 3rd party). Guessing, however educated (or not), can only go so far, but after that it's foolish to make statements based simply

 

Justforfun, you are correct in your summary, and the fact is that this person made a concious decision to claim benefits he wasn't entitled to, making him a benefit cheat.

[patrickq1]

You also said you needed help with your personal toilet

you forgot to mention he was running with a pair of billy connellys contanance pant lol

patrickq1

[Joa]

I couldn't help myself from adding to this thread, which has gone off the rails few time.

I wrote a paper few months ago about benefit fraud. I wanted to tell you that the figures which quoted as "lost to fraud" do not tell the whole story.

In 2003-04 DWP spent some £109 billion on a wide range of benefits, employment programmes and the associated administration costs. It estimates that around £3 billion of this expenditure may have been lost from benefit payments because of fraud and error, the same estimate as reported in 2002-03 and 2001-02 . However the figures also show that official error results in almost as much benefit being overpaid as claimant fraud.

It is therefore important to distinguish the losses suffered by DWP due to error and those which are caused by fraud. This is because, in my opinion and in light of this distinction, the headlines reporting 3billion loss are skewed and sensationalist.

Dean and Melrose (1995) who produced a paper “Manageable discord” found that the predominant reason for fiddling was economic necessity, inadequacy of benefit payments, lack of belief in the system and lack of opportunities. The principal preliminary findings were that those claimants that fiddled were not especially “streetwise”.

 

The research conducted in 2004 by Spark Research for DWP discovered that fraud investigators commonly accepted admission of an overpayment as admission of intent and that the claimants are being offered a caution under threat of being prosecuted if they do not accept it. This can lead to convictions for fraud in situations where claimant couldn’t have reasonably been expected to know that they are doing something wrong!

 

Poverty and financial need are often cited as the main reason for people claim fraudulently. CPAG’s Ten Steps to a Society Free of Child Poverty states that “safety net benefits are worth around £192 per week for a couple with children (…)- £80 less then the poverty line (£272). For a lone parent (…) the safety net is worth £160, some £29 less then the poverty line of £189”

 

Finally, there are vulnerable claimants, who are often illiterate, confused, unable to cope with complexity of the application forms, change of circumstances requirements and renewal forms. They very often are claiming many correlated benefits, like disability or sickness benefits, together with Income Support and passported benefits. They may have a care or prison background and very limited language skills. As the DWP does not see itself as having responsibility for ensuring that such people know what benefits are available, the question is - who is?

 

Not being able to understand what is going on with their claim, very often does not prevent claimants from being convicted of fraud. It doesn’t help that this particular group of claimants would find it very difficult to challenge an overpayment/eligibility decision; therefore they are the soft target, the easy statistics.

 

“Recent organisational change and the plan to shed a quarter of its workforce, possibly lowering morale and increasing turnover among the staff whose skills are most needed to combat fraud and error, will not make the Department’s job any easier.” These are comments made by Mr Edward Leigh MP, Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts and contain, in my opinion, the other then fraud reason behind the large-scale losses suffered by DWP- an error made by the decision maker.

 

Common sense tells us that dissatisfied, disillusioned staff are bound to make mistakes. It is widely known in a welfare advice sector, that plenty of overpayment appeals are won for clients on grounds of an official error.

It is difficult to establish how much money exactly is lost through an official error, how much of it is recovered and how much is not recoverable. Additionally, we will never know, how much would not have been recovered if the claimant was able to appeal the original decision, instead of agreeing meekly with the overpayment decision. Mr Leigh talks about high level of error by staff making benefit payments costing the department estimated £1.5 billion a year.

An example of the scale of losses due to an error as opposite to fraud was made by Kate Nash, Chief Executive of RADAR who said: “In reality, fraud among people claiming Incapacity Benefit accounts for less than 2% of the Department for Work and Pension’s total expenditure on benefits. Fraud accounts for no more than £20m, with over £90m being wasted through errors that are not the fault of claimants.”

 

So, a massive 3 billion pounds leaks out of the DWP’s benefits budget. Most of this loss is preventable and at least half of it has nothing to do with “benefit cheats”. It would however be a political suicide for the department to admit it. The “scroungers” are a much more convenient headline.

 

And finally setmefree: how would you recognise between those "named and shamed" in your local paper which one of these people were elderly confused chaps who did not know that they have to report a minuscule private pension? An illiterate 16 year old single mother who was never able to get an advice because she was embarrassed that she cannot read? What about a very sick person who had to cope with fantastically complex application forms on his own because the government cut the funding for advice sector to the bone?

 

All these people, thanks to the way "fraud" procedures are set out, would be technically fraudsters. There is hundred of thousands of them. Your poor local paper would go out of business if they had to print even 1% of these names.

 

I am not angry at your question. I just sought to clarify few things for those who are ignorant.

[patrickq1]

what a good write up joa,it was something worth reading......shame the goverment do not spend enough time on helping those that really do need the help,i am sure it would save billions in benefits just to go and visit those that ask for help

patrickq1

[JonCris]

Great post joa & full of knowledgeable comment.

 

Also what gets overlooked, particularly by those who would name & shame, is that many so called benefit cheats have in fact not taken from the system anymore that they would be entitled to had they claimed the correct benefit & in some cases the State has actually benefited because the 'cheat' has claimed less than their entitlement

[Tezcatlipoca]

To answer the initial question, no, I do not think that 'naming and shaming' benefit cheats is a good idea; indeed, I think it is a dangerously irresponsible one.

The problem here is that it's decidedly unhelpful, not to mention myopic, to view all those labelled 'Benefit Cheats' as scroungers and thieves (although many undoubtedly are). Human lives are massively complex, and the reasons that lead to fraud equally so. Despite the natural desire to compartmentalise (or worse, demonise), I think we are looking at least four broad types of fraud here.

 

Firstly there are those who indirectly or inadvertently commit fraud. The benefits process can be lengthy and extremely confusing, especially for some of the more vulnerable members of society. It's easier than you might imagine to make a false claim without realising you're doing so, and equally easy to assume that the money you are ultimately being paid must be the right amount.

 

Secondly - and linked to the first - there are mistakes by the DWP themselves. As JOA quite rightly says, errors do occur; errors which often result in people being overpaid. Unless they're diligent enough to pick up on it early, these overpayments may go on for some considerable time, and, when discovered, still result in the claimant being branded a fraud.

 

Thirdly, there is a great deal of low-level benefit fraud that is committed not by hardened criminals but by those simply trying to survive; people who might 'forget' to declare the income of a small Saturday job whilst claiming because to do so would leave them worse off. And worse off when you're unfortunate enough to be at the bottom rungs of the social ladder is often very bad indeed.

It is with this group that I have sympathies. Whilst I cannot ultimately condone fraud, I can both understand why people in this group engage in it, and think it highlights more serious issues with the benefits system as it is, rather than with the people committing the minor fraud.

 

Finally there are those who set out to defraud simply through greed. Again, I certainly don't condone such behaviour, but it seems probable to me that a great many people of this group do so through a kind of 'everyone does it, so why not me?' attitude, which again highlights social problems. Ministers are involved near-weekly in sleaze and fraud investigations, and let's not forget that until very recently the DWP's own head was forced to resign amidst fraud allegations (no ifs, no buts, Peter). With such a strong message of hypocrisy being broadcast from Westminster, it is no wonder that a certain contempt is maintained for 'the system'.

 

I have little time for those who deliberately set out to defraud society simply through greed, but if I am to hold true to those principles then I cannot fail to apply them equally to those who steal from the public purse simply to enrich their own families (sleazy come, sleazy go, Mr Conway), those who claim large expenses either not owed to them or undeserved, those councils who squander vast amounts of money simply to justify larger grants in the following fiscal year, and the list goes on and on.

I am not as concerned by these 'dole scroungers' as I am by an irresponsible, hypocritical and frankly incompetent government - both central and local level - who steal far more of my hard earned money than the benefit fraudsters ever could, and who, by their actions, broadcast a clear message that fraud is acceptable as long as you don't get caught.

[PriorityOne]

Great post, Tex.... scales tipped accordingly.

[patrickq1]

good post i have difficulty understanding the fraud parts,i cannot even get the claim stages so how on earth do people manage to get away with fraud,

i for one could nt contemplate a lie as it is not in my nature,ive always beleived that they were right and i must have been wrong,but no more whatever the DWP say to me i look upon them with the same attitude and beleif that i am dealing with someone who is not to be trusted whatever they say,so much so that i made them sign a letter headed paper last week and photo copy all document i handed to them to itemise everything ,they were not happy fortunitly i am now dealing direct with the area managers department,i also went to the extreme lenghs of getting a letter from the medical ethics commission that ATOS ORIGON must keep all DAT concerning all works tests and they are now contacting them on my behalf to get the DATA four all works tests,and they have also written to the area manager reminding her that what she beleives to be true is wrong and she also conformed with my MP the same message ,so i am at last getting somewhere i can only thank the area manager from the DWP for telling me it was their policy only to keep records for 14 months well she did nt just tell me she told my MP the same,with this i erupted and almost blew a fuse and unfortunitly i have three severe angina attacks,,,dammm so i then informed her in front of the MP that i will be sticking to my claim dating back to 2003,also fortunitly i found a two page document that the ATOS ORIGON doctor wrote and it is this that the medical ethics commision want to do a seperate investigation into who ever did the medical tests considering i have a written surgeons report and two other specialist reports refuting everything they wrote

so i am getting somewhere

patrickq1

fraud i wish i had the nerve but i could nt its stealling so in my book it does not matter how desperate its just not on,

[Yet_Another_Atos_Victim]

An average of £800 million benefit fraud is committed every year,this could be spent on our hospitals etc etc.

 

Hi setmefree,

 

Agree with you about real fraudsters like 'Andy' the fictional character in a wheelchair in Little Britain who really isn't disabled at all. However when we feel like this feeling just how the politicians want us to feel.

 

Politicians stir up division and strife all the time between different groups in our society to detract from The Greatest Political Lie: They repeatedly say there is no money for benefits and pensions and hospitals, and all the things ordinary people pay our taxes for, but our national yearly wealth is £1,575,472,687,611! This is much more than is ever needed for all the most vital services.

 

The problem, in my view, is that politicians have 0% interest in us apart from getting us to vote them onto the gravy train every 4 or 5 years. Between elections the politicos absolutely haemorrage OUR money on ego projects which they think make them look good and which also usually feather the nests of their mates in global industry (banking, nuclear fuel, armaments, nuclear arms, "consultancy", I.T., private 'healthcare', oil etc etc). Strangely enough these mates then provide cushy jobs for the failed politicians or those who want to leech even more money from we ordinary people whom they so much despise.

 

Fight back here:

Sack Atos Healthcare Immediately Petition

 

Best wishes, John

[Conniff]

£1,575,472,687,611 may be the income, but after deduction of MPs pay/expenses/pensions and paying the mortgage on their second houses, I believe there is only around 73p left for other things.

[Yet_Another_Atos_Victim]

Yeah - that would be about right Conniff

 

As the TV program asked "Who's cheating who?"

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://youtube.com/watch?v%3Dyop7L95NyIU&ct=ga&cad=:s7:f1:v0:i1:lt:e1:p1:t1275343973:&cd=zV9_ozc0JPk&usg=AFQjCNGFizn1QlJbNzETllp9eR0t2G8DwA

 

BTW, if you've not signed the petition yet, please feel free to do do:

Sack Atos Healthcare Immediately Petition

 

Best Regards, John

Edited June 12, 2010 by Yet_Another_Atos_Victim
Forgot to post link to program referred-to

[PriorityOne]

 

Politicians stir up division and strife all the time between different groups in our society to detract from The Greatest Political Lie: They repeatedly say there is no money for benefits and pensions and hospitals, and all the things ordinary people pay our taxes for

 

Agreed.... the tabloids then stir it up even more by maintaining a focus on certain groups of people in particular; avoiding the question of why cack Gov. policy caused/allowed it to happen in the first place....

[Yet_Another_Atos_Victim]

Yessssss - absolutely, PriorityOne

 

I hope to post a thread in the near future quoting some data to illustrate our points. I remember 3 in particular because they are so shocking:

 

1. The £1.5 Trillion of GDP our country has annaully - enough to pay for everything;

2. The £120 Billion every year spent on the EU, which gives nothing back and imposes it's looney laws on the UK;

3. The 70% of sick benefit ESA claims which are denied the proper benefit sue to lies and cheating by Atos Healthcare / Origin. I say sack them now :

Sack Atos Healthcare Immediately Petition

 

Take care

[JonCris]

A great many of the so called benefit cheats have not cheated at all many have mistakenly claimed the wrong benefit. In fact when its calculated many have, by claiming the wrong benefit, been short changed in that the correct benefit payments would have been greater, in some cases, by many hundreds of pounds

Edited June 12, 2010 by JonCris

[Conniff]

It annoys me when they say such things as 'there are17,000 pensioners not claiming the benefits they are entitled to'. If they know that, then they must know who they are so why don't they inform them.

 

I know why really, it's so they can boast 'hey look we got all this money and you aint coming to get it', but they don't really want you to have it.