Pirate. I think it is worse than Russia here, what with the CCTV,which is good in a lot of ways, but the fact that the DWP can just look into your bank accounts when they feel like it, is not on. This is really not a free country, it is Big Brother for real.

I'm glad they can check up on you TBh if you've got nothing too hide and your not up to no good then you've got nothing too worry about, the CSA have done this with my daughter's dad and now i am going too get money that is owed to me and my child that we should have got years ago instead of him having nice holidays and not paying his dues 

 

yep

benefit fraud is bad and costs the country a lot of money but these people actually must have realised that her kids dad wasnt claiming-in fact NEVER claimed but still had the power to trawl through his personal business

Aye...there's a lot going on in this "great" "free" country when you scratch the surface.

It's fair enough to check on someone claiming but checks on a partner should stop at finding out if they actually live where they say they do. Anything more is too intrusive. Sadly that's the way things are going in Britain with a steady drift towards authoritarianism!

yay for you and your daughter!

yep, my mates got nothing to worry about but i dont like this 'stasi' abuse of powers

*see you in the van in 10mins*

Would they would use the same zeal when ferreting out the tax avoiding offshore twats etc,but no lets target some folk maybe not paying a few hundred instead of those not paying millions.

I was about to say the same. So called benefit fraud, whilst annoying, is several divisions away from where the big Pretty Polly is misappropriated.

I would BUT the CSA might be watching 

The funny part is i phoned the EX to warn him  i'm too nice for my own good 

i posted this cos its scary how far these 'bin scavengers' can go

theyre a law unto themselves, like the family courts

although i understand what aimee is saying

benefit fraud investigators  have  an awful lot of powers, but  as far as i am aware they do not have access to private bank accounts, as such, they do have access to any interest payments that are made on an account, and this often leads to questions about how the interest came about..

it's probably how they ask the questions at the interview that leads ppl to think that the investigators have access, but they are just on a fishing exercise really.

it can also be worrying how little they know,  back in the early 90's i was at university and recieved a grant, my husband was unemployed and "signing on", however because my grant was £5 over the amount the law says we need to live on he didn't get any income support * (we had 2 children),

we were investigated because someone reported me for working (they saw me catching a bus on a regular basis - pity they didn't see the books) , investigators came out and when i told them the situation they didn't realise my oh had no income.

 

* this meant i actually only had £5 per week for my course - the bus fares were £17 a week

Benefit fraud enquiries annoy me generally - the amount of money it costs to investigate I believe outweighs what they recover. The biggest culprits know the scams to hide away the details, it's only the small fry generally that get caught. There are always exceptions and I am against benefit fraud. Don't see much to be gained either from the tiny weekly repayments made by the guilty culprits, it isn't going to really help the national debt.

I hate people that scam benefits as much as the next person..    but I have been caught between a rock & a hard place with them in terms of supposed man living with you.   Way way back (years before MrD came into our lives, back when I couldn't work, cos I couldn't afford to work, before Labour came into power & made it possible by changing the working tax credit system), I started seeing someone.     It was early days in the relationship, he stayed round mine 1 or 2 nights a week.      I got hauled in for a fraud interview...     upshot being I had to stop seeing the bloke..   it was way way too early in the relationship to expect him to move in with us etc...  

 

Maybe its just from my perspective..    but it always seems like they go after the petty cases..   the ones that are 'transient' or just getting their feet, rather than the hardcore, make a living from it, benefit fraudsters.

...and for me the CSA have always been a complete waste of space..     they only wanted to know when I wasn't working, & then it always felt like they were having a go at me.    As soon as I was working, they didn't want to know.

 

He could take me to court for access...  and maintenance payments would not be considered along with his hearing for access..     maintenance was to be dealt with by the CSA, & when I needed them they were as much use as tits on a nun, ermmmm a chocolate ashtray  

i don't really understand why it is that joe bloggs fiddling ten quid a week, gets caught and hauled in for interview and threatened with court action etc. within a milisecond of the alleged moffence.

 

and yet some one claiming as several different people from various addresses , with varying amounts of dependants, can rob the system blind,buy  a villa in Spain,  have holidays in Barbados  and buy a yacht, and the  investigators say' we thought some thing  wasn't right ' and it transpires that the thieving toe-rag has been at it for years, and has cheated the system out of  tens of thousands...

^^^  what Jackson says!  

 

Did you watch that programme the other week about it? one bloke owned a pub in Devon i think it was, yet was getting benefits and a council flat in London and same for the bloke that had a yacht and a  house in France 

Also agree with this Jackson...   And what pisses me off is how bigwigs and people in power (bankers, MPs etc...) can get away with squandering/robbing 100s of millions, and don't seem to generally pay for it, and they often bounce back and probably write a book about it....!!!!   And yet, when someone 'normal' like us guys on here, defrauds the DWP out of several grand, they get dragged through the courts, get humiliated in the papers, probably lose their job - if they have one - and are made to pay back the money they owe out of their remaining 'wealth...'  

Most ordinary folk who defraud benefit, usually do it to keep their head above water, and not many end up absolutely loaded!  Some may be on incapacity benefit and are finding it hard to go back to work, (even if they are a bit better health-wise,) because they have been off work for so long that it's hard to go back...and sometimes, they can be better off on benefits anyway...

 

But I am not condoning benefit fraud, I just think that not everyone who does it is an evil criminal, and as I said, it does annoy me that nobby rich folk seem to get away with it a lot more and come out of it almost totally unscathed, when little folk have their lives ruined.  And yes the ones who rob millions and have yachts and villas and all kinds of shit need punishing too.  But the single mum working on the side in the local pub?  or having the father of her kids give her 50 quid a week?  Should someone like this be badly punished ?  No IMO.

 

Not impressed with how they can look at everything either... and you have to declare EVERYthing? Even ebay things or if your folks buy your shopping?!  thats ludicrous!

 

Glad you got what you deserved off your ex though Aims... I guess there is another side to to it.

 

yep, i saw that one.

 

was also the policeman who had a council flat in london and was renting it out and making a mint from it, he hasn't been sacked yet, i thought it was a pre requisite of upholding the law, that you wouldn't be breaking it yourself..

 

sparkles, i agree about all the tax fiddles, avoidance and sheer criminality  of the  great and the good.

 

saw a bloke being arrested  and  shoved around by the new york police on the news a couple of days back , he made a good point to the police  and the all powerful, he said

 

'why aren't you  arresting the people  that have   run the banks into the ground and caused so much misery for so many and virtually wiped out our economy and put  millions on the bead line?, all i am doing is shouting in the street....'