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Woman had £16k taken from inheritance and charged with benefit fraud because she failed to declare that she was working whilst claiming benefits.
Source:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-68727007](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-68727007)
Quite right. She committed benefit fraud. I don’t understand why she wasn’t charged with fraud in the first place. The fact DWP didn’t pick up on the HMRC alert is irrelevant. It was still fraud.
It was her responsibility to tell DWP if she got a job, and she was told this in all the official letters from DWP she received. She didn’t tell them and blames a social worker for telling her she didn’t need to - but social workers are not DWP experts. So she should have relied on the instructions she had from DWP and told them. Her fault for not doing this.
Because she had no savings at the time, DWP agreed a long term repayment plan.
Once she inherited 16k, DWP rightly went after the money to pay off the debt straight away.
Good for taxpayers, because treasury gets the money back now instead of waiting years.
Good for her because now she won’t have a debt hanging round her neck for years or decades. She won’t be paying her debt every month in future, she’ll be able to keep all her future monies.
She ends up financially no worse off than if she’d not wrongly got the 17k benefits. If she’d done the right thing in the first place she wouldn’t have had the 17k wrongly paid benefits. Because she received them and spent them she then owed that 17K back.
The bias in this article by the two journalists is very bad. It’s designed to be click-bait, is not even-handed and uses language designed to put DWP in bad light. The majority of the paragraphs are bemoaning how terrible this is and how unfair (quotes from her, a random DWP staff member, the judge) with very little room in the article given over to explaining why she was in the wrong and that she would have known this from the letters she received at the time, and very little room in the article for DWPs correct interpretation.
Also odd that there is no mention of the fact she could have simply given the 16k to DWP to pay off her debt, rather than hoping she could get away with keeping the money and not paying off her legally-binding debt. She could have avoided this criminal trial if she had done the right thing, but once again she didn’t.
> It’s designed to be click bait
Not to detract from the main story, but anyone else feel that the BBC News site feels increasingly like this lately? It used to be the go to for my news but over the years, I’m finding every time I go there, there’s some main headline that’s worded as a click/rage bait. The journalism has seriously declined – there’s no longer context or balance or objectivity; articles are increasingly angled solely from the point of view of their subjects. This article is a prime example of it.
Tend to agree. The quality of writing, spelling, and grammar have all tailed off as well. I struggle to find a news outlet that feels trustworthy and balanced now.
She might not have been charged with fraud because of lack of evidence of intent. Getting a PAYE job while claiming full benefits is unlikely to be deliberate fraud since that should be insanely easy for one HMRC worker to catch every single person doing it with basically no work.
She was probably being paid a carers allowance for looking after her mother, as was the case with me. I was informed by DWP that I could work a job so long as I earned less than £120 per week. I would be very surprised if she wasn’t aware of the situation.
My apologies yes you are correct over £6000 will reduce and over £16000 will nuke your benefit claim entirely,
When your capital is £6,250 or less, your Universal Credit will be reduced by £4.35 a month until the value of your capital is £6,000 or less. Once your capital is £6,000 or less, your Universal Credit will no longer be reduced. If you have capital valued at £16,000 or more, you are not entitled to Universal Credit.
If you have more than £6,000 of capital it will reduce your Universal Credit payments. The DWP will take off £4.35 a month for each £250 (or part of £250) of capital above £6,000. For example, the DWP will take off £4.35 if you have savings of £6,001 because £1 is a part of £250.
Same story as universal credit if you're a married couple and one of you work your partners benefit such as carers allowance will be reduced to zero before you get full pay for the overtime you do taxed 55p to the £1 which is why they want everyone signed up to uc to rob the poorest people and combine their claims as one.
Minimum wage went up on April 1st along with rent and bus prices etc but you won't see any real difference if you are married, you are now worse off than before when you take these higher bills into account as your money has not changed at all unless both of you work which then you'll need to fund childcare etc it's designed to keep the poor poor and have as many people slaving away as possible on the breadline maximum of around £2000 a month as a couple.
If you or your partner are working, how much Universal Credit you get will depend on how much you earn. There’s no limit to how many hours you can work and still get Universal Credit.
If your wages go up, your Universal Credit payment will reduce. If you stop working or your wages go down, your payment will increase.
There are different rules if you’re self-employed.
For every £1 you earn from working, your Universal Credit payment goes down by 55p. Your income will be your wages plus your new Universal Credit payment.
https://youtu.be/yKk3QQOsaTg
That's news to me, as someone who's been on it for over a decade while Universal Credit have repeatedly told me to fuck off.
It also seems to be news to the government, who list them as separate benefits. Are you thinking about the carer element of UC? Because that's unrelated, to the best of my knowledge, and there is no savings eligibility criteria for carer's allowance.
They're doing a switchover right now bro it's in the works if it isn't part of it at this moment in time, they want everything to be attached through universal credit
18:20
https://youtu.be/Wht4H5smJ-c
So... completely irrelevant to this woman's situation then?
And yes, I know the ultimate goal of Universal Credit is to be a universal benefit. But since they've absolutely fucking failed at that since they first had the idea, I don't think we have anything to be concerned about for a long time. My mum's still on DLA, 11 years after it was supposedly replaced by PIP. The government, and the DWP in particular, is staffed with complete morons.
"I followed that lady's rules and I looked after my mum," she said.
I mean, she seems to have a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of whether she needs to follow the actual law, or the rules set by some random lass she knows.
It’s not ‘a random lass she knows’ though. A social worker is supposed to help you navigate the minefield of what you need to do when someone is terminally ill, where you can get help and support, and basically help share the burden. I can say they were a lifeline when caring for my critically ill father. You trust these people, they look into things on your behalf, and they are supposed to have your back.
Yeah agreed however when someone is critically ill it’s exhausting both mentally and physically, you don’t even have the brainpower available ti think about the accuracy of what they are saying you just trust that they know the system better than you
If she had declared her earnings and her job to DWP, she won't have been overpaid.
Basically, a social worker gave her the wrong information, and took that as gospel rather than asking the DWP.
Sound advice, but people do. Equally I think DWP share some blame as they knew about the fraud and let it Continue.
16k over 5 years isn't vast sums and she had a repayment plan.
Potentially, but if she had informed DWP it wouldn't have turned into this mess, and not taken advice from someone who isn't DWP.
We know DWP can be absoloute scum, but if they had known, they may have not been complete scum.
I used to work for DWP. All the letters she got will have told her about earnings and changes in her circumstances. It doesn't matter what the social worker told her. Its her responsibility to ensure a the information on her claim is correct. Ignorance if the law is no defence.
That’s beside the point I’m afraid. She should have queried this directly with them. A social worker is not a tax expert or an accountant.
That being said, the DWP are absolutely not in the clear here. They categorically should have been aware of this and never should have let it go as far as they did. They have a live link to HMRC and would have received automatic notifications about her PAYE payments via her NI No. on their systems.
She was told by DWP in all their official letters she would have received, that she did need to tell DWP that she had taken a job.
She should not have assumed that a social worker knew better than DWP. Her mistake, so she has to take responsibility for it.
She shows no remorse for her own wrong actions, and is just “poor old me…”
I don't believe her.
I worked in social work roles some time ago, We were very aware that the DWP had strict rules on savings and declaration of any income. That was back in the mid 2000s.
We referred people to Citizens' Advice (or similar) for advice. We were far too conscious of giving people bad advice, with ramifications for them and us.
Edit: clearly, she may have been given bad advice by a social worker, but I find it unlikely. The DWP is VERY well-known in the sector for unforgiving rules.
Have to side with her on this one,
Read the article, DWP were aware of the overpayments within 2-3 months as they got alerts.
They decided not to stop them, even though she was already being investigated.
Granted she did technically receive more than she should, however she had set up a payment plan and was paying the debt off.
DWP found out about the inheritance and said fuck it we'll just have that instead.
Absolute scum, over 40% of carers live in poverty.
This is not on.
Also 16k over 5 years isn't a vast sum.
DWP knew and did nothing, that's the real crime.
This is just convenient rage bait to distract from tax avoiding robbery
I agree partially but she still bears some responsibility for failing to declare she was working. I know she was given advice by a social worker to the contrary but ultimately it was her responsibility to ensure she made informed decisions.
Of course if the DWP hadn't kept overpaying this wouldn't have gotten to the point it did.
If the fraud investigation was already underway then DWP would keep paying, even if they were aware of the overpayment.
Informing her after the investigation had begun could constitute "tipping-off" (basically giving someone the heads up their being investigated).
She didnt declare she was working, and in order for her to receive UC she would have accepted her claimant commitments, which actually emphasise you must report any changes in your circumstances prompty "including any changes to work".
As always we dont get the full picture, but if she has been charged with benefit fraud there is clearly more to this then just a misunderstanding....
We do not. In my authority, like most, we refer to our welfare-benefits department. We are not benefits advisors.
That being said this particular social worker should have known better.
We have only heard the account that this woman has given and I would be interested to hear exactly how the advice was worded...
Honestly, the writer of that article did a pretty crap job...
>She said she initially agreed a payment plan with the DWP at £30 per month to cover the overpayments, which she received between 2014 and 2019.
>
>...
>
>The only way for the DWP to recover the money was to prosecute Mrs Groom, so she was charged with benefit fraud offences.
That second paragraph isn't a quote from the DWP (if it is, it's not written as one), it's a statement. So which is it? Was the "only way" to recover the money to prosecute her and have her charged with benefit fraud, or had they agreed a payment plan with her so she could repay what she owed in smaller installments as she had claimed? Both of those things can't be true at the same time.
If there was a payment plan in place as this woman claims, then fuck the DWP.
>Speaking outside court on Wednesday, her husband, Geoff, told the BBC his wife had been "penalised for looking after her mum".
...I mean, she was penalised for the crime of benefit fraud. Looking after your mum is not a crime, and not what she was prosecuted for.
If I drop my kid off at school and then murder someone on the way home, can I claim I'm being "penalised for caring for my child?"
DWP are truly awful. I was overpaid on my part time wages for 6 months by about £100 a month, my boss realised and told me I had to pay it back and sent some info to DWP, they then decided they had overpaid me child tax credit and took 6 months of overpayment back in just 2 months and left me with absolutely nothing, I went overdrawn just to pay the rent, no money for food for me and my then young daughter. Thankfully my work were kinder and waited 3 months before starting to claim back their overpayment, I told DWP I was paying it back to my employer but they said it didn’t matter, at the time I got it I had more money than I had declared so it’s irrelevant I’m paying it back now. So I lost the money twice and at the low income I was on it took me about a year to stop going into the red each month. Thank goodness for food banks who helped out or we wouldn’t have eaten.
Carers allowance and benefits are shit anyway.
Id much rather they went after billionaires, cut down on tax loop holes, and went after people who ripped off the county with fake PPE companies etc during covid instead.
While I totally agree that people who defraud the DWP should be prosecuted, I’m bound to wonder how many small & large businesses and wealthy individuals who commit tax fraud to the tune of £16,000 would even be made to pay it back let alone be punished for it.
Hi Fuzzy-Mood-9139, thanks for posting to r/Compoface! Don't worry, your post has not been removed. This is an automated reminder to post a link to the original article for your compoface. This link can be included in the post body or as a comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/compoface) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Woman had £16k taken from inheritance and charged with benefit fraud because she failed to declare that she was working whilst claiming benefits. Source: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-68727007](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-68727007)
Quite right. She committed benefit fraud. I don’t understand why she wasn’t charged with fraud in the first place. The fact DWP didn’t pick up on the HMRC alert is irrelevant. It was still fraud. It was her responsibility to tell DWP if she got a job, and she was told this in all the official letters from DWP she received. She didn’t tell them and blames a social worker for telling her she didn’t need to - but social workers are not DWP experts. So she should have relied on the instructions she had from DWP and told them. Her fault for not doing this. Because she had no savings at the time, DWP agreed a long term repayment plan. Once she inherited 16k, DWP rightly went after the money to pay off the debt straight away. Good for taxpayers, because treasury gets the money back now instead of waiting years. Good for her because now she won’t have a debt hanging round her neck for years or decades. She won’t be paying her debt every month in future, she’ll be able to keep all her future monies. She ends up financially no worse off than if she’d not wrongly got the 17k benefits. If she’d done the right thing in the first place she wouldn’t have had the 17k wrongly paid benefits. Because she received them and spent them she then owed that 17K back. The bias in this article by the two journalists is very bad. It’s designed to be click-bait, is not even-handed and uses language designed to put DWP in bad light. The majority of the paragraphs are bemoaning how terrible this is and how unfair (quotes from her, a random DWP staff member, the judge) with very little room in the article given over to explaining why she was in the wrong and that she would have known this from the letters she received at the time, and very little room in the article for DWPs correct interpretation. Also odd that there is no mention of the fact she could have simply given the 16k to DWP to pay off her debt, rather than hoping she could get away with keeping the money and not paying off her legally-binding debt. She could have avoided this criminal trial if she had done the right thing, but once again she didn’t.
> It’s designed to be click bait Not to detract from the main story, but anyone else feel that the BBC News site feels increasingly like this lately? It used to be the go to for my news but over the years, I’m finding every time I go there, there’s some main headline that’s worded as a click/rage bait. The journalism has seriously declined – there’s no longer context or balance or objectivity; articles are increasingly angled solely from the point of view of their subjects. This article is a prime example of it.
Tend to agree. The quality of writing, spelling, and grammar have all tailed off as well. I struggle to find a news outlet that feels trustworthy and balanced now.
This is correct. You need more upvotes.
She might not have been charged with fraud because of lack of evidence of intent. Getting a PAYE job while claiming full benefits is unlikely to be deliberate fraud since that should be insanely easy for one HMRC worker to catch every single person doing it with basically no work.
She was probably being paid a carers allowance for looking after her mother, as was the case with me. I was informed by DWP that I could work a job so long as I earned less than £120 per week. I would be very surprised if she wasn’t aware of the situation.
She wouldn't get benefits if she was unemployed anyway as she has over £6000 savings....
Isn't it 16 grand in savings you're allowed?
My apologies yes you are correct over £6000 will reduce and over £16000 will nuke your benefit claim entirely, When your capital is £6,250 or less, your Universal Credit will be reduced by £4.35 a month until the value of your capital is £6,000 or less. Once your capital is £6,000 or less, your Universal Credit will no longer be reduced. If you have capital valued at £16,000 or more, you are not entitled to Universal Credit. If you have more than £6,000 of capital it will reduce your Universal Credit payments. The DWP will take off £4.35 a month for each £250 (or part of £250) of capital above £6,000. For example, the DWP will take off £4.35 if you have savings of £6,001 because £1 is a part of £250. Same story as universal credit if you're a married couple and one of you work your partners benefit such as carers allowance will be reduced to zero before you get full pay for the overtime you do taxed 55p to the £1 which is why they want everyone signed up to uc to rob the poorest people and combine their claims as one. Minimum wage went up on April 1st along with rent and bus prices etc but you won't see any real difference if you are married, you are now worse off than before when you take these higher bills into account as your money has not changed at all unless both of you work which then you'll need to fund childcare etc it's designed to keep the poor poor and have as many people slaving away as possible on the breadline maximum of around £2000 a month as a couple. If you or your partner are working, how much Universal Credit you get will depend on how much you earn. There’s no limit to how many hours you can work and still get Universal Credit. If your wages go up, your Universal Credit payment will reduce. If you stop working or your wages go down, your payment will increase. There are different rules if you’re self-employed. For every £1 you earn from working, your Universal Credit payment goes down by 55p. Your income will be your wages plus your new Universal Credit payment. https://youtu.be/yKk3QQOsaTg
This has nothing to do with Universal Credit... this is Carer's Allowance, which is an entirely different shit benefit that traps people in poverty.
Should have got continuing healthcare funding then the mother could employ her daughter and she can still do extra work.
Yes but Carers allowance is now part of universal credit...
That's news to me, as someone who's been on it for over a decade while Universal Credit have repeatedly told me to fuck off. It also seems to be news to the government, who list them as separate benefits. Are you thinking about the carer element of UC? Because that's unrelated, to the best of my knowledge, and there is no savings eligibility criteria for carer's allowance.
They're doing a switchover right now bro it's in the works if it isn't part of it at this moment in time, they want everything to be attached through universal credit 18:20 https://youtu.be/Wht4H5smJ-c
So... completely irrelevant to this woman's situation then? And yes, I know the ultimate goal of Universal Credit is to be a universal benefit. But since they've absolutely fucking failed at that since they first had the idea, I don't think we have anything to be concerned about for a long time. My mum's still on DLA, 11 years after it was supposedly replaced by PIP. The government, and the DWP in particular, is staffed with complete morons.
Pip is getting replaced with adp shortly as well
She committed benefit fraud.
She was told by a social worker it wouldn't need to be declared to DWP.
Social workers aren't DWP though.
"I followed that lady's rules and I looked after my mum," she said. I mean, she seems to have a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of whether she needs to follow the actual law, or the rules set by some random lass she knows.
It’s not ‘a random lass she knows’ though. A social worker is supposed to help you navigate the minefield of what you need to do when someone is terminally ill, where you can get help and support, and basically help share the burden. I can say they were a lifeline when caring for my critically ill father. You trust these people, they look into things on your behalf, and they are supposed to have your back.
If you see what social workers are paid I think you might agree with me why this can happen (not that it should, this job is severely underpaid)
Yeah agreed however when someone is critically ill it’s exhausting both mentally and physically, you don’t even have the brainpower available ti think about the accuracy of what they are saying you just trust that they know the system better than you
DWP also know it was over paying her but didn't stop, how would she know if she was being over paid?
If she had declared her earnings and her job to DWP, she won't have been overpaid. Basically, a social worker gave her the wrong information, and took that as gospel rather than asking the DWP.
And that's fair but they are an authority figure and unfortunately this lady never heard the phrase "trust but verify"
Don't trust anyone other than the actual people you need the advise from.
Sound advice, but people do. Equally I think DWP share some blame as they knew about the fraud and let it Continue. 16k over 5 years isn't vast sums and she had a repayment plan.
Potentially, but if she had informed DWP it wouldn't have turned into this mess, and not taken advice from someone who isn't DWP. We know DWP can be absoloute scum, but if they had known, they may have not been complete scum.
This is true. However I think this is being blown way out of proportion.
I used to work for DWP. All the letters she got will have told her about earnings and changes in her circumstances. It doesn't matter what the social worker told her. Its her responsibility to ensure a the information on her claim is correct. Ignorance if the law is no defence.
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Your submission has been removed as it is about national or international politics.
That’s beside the point I’m afraid. She should have queried this directly with them. A social worker is not a tax expert or an accountant. That being said, the DWP are absolutely not in the clear here. They categorically should have been aware of this and never should have let it go as far as they did. They have a live link to HMRC and would have received automatic notifications about her PAYE payments via her NI No. on their systems.
So she says.
She was told by DWP in all their official letters she would have received, that she did need to tell DWP that she had taken a job. She should not have assumed that a social worker knew better than DWP. Her mistake, so she has to take responsibility for it. She shows no remorse for her own wrong actions, and is just “poor old me…”
I don't believe her. I worked in social work roles some time ago, We were very aware that the DWP had strict rules on savings and declaration of any income. That was back in the mid 2000s. We referred people to Citizens' Advice (or similar) for advice. We were far too conscious of giving people bad advice, with ramifications for them and us. Edit: clearly, she may have been given bad advice by a social worker, but I find it unlikely. The DWP is VERY well-known in the sector for unforgiving rules.
Takes two seconds to read the eligibility criteria. Sure the social worker misinformed her, but it's her responsibility at the end of the day
Have to side with her on this one, Read the article, DWP were aware of the overpayments within 2-3 months as they got alerts. They decided not to stop them, even though she was already being investigated. Granted she did technically receive more than she should, however she had set up a payment plan and was paying the debt off. DWP found out about the inheritance and said fuck it we'll just have that instead. Absolute scum, over 40% of carers live in poverty. This is not on.
Also 16k over 5 years isn't a vast sum. DWP knew and did nothing, that's the real crime. This is just convenient rage bait to distract from tax avoiding robbery
It’s always the little people who get caught.
It's because us little people can't defend themselves.
I agree partially but she still bears some responsibility for failing to declare she was working. I know she was given advice by a social worker to the contrary but ultimately it was her responsibility to ensure she made informed decisions. Of course if the DWP hadn't kept overpaying this wouldn't have gotten to the point it did.
If the fraud investigation was already underway then DWP would keep paying, even if they were aware of the overpayment. Informing her after the investigation had begun could constitute "tipping-off" (basically giving someone the heads up their being investigated). She didnt declare she was working, and in order for her to receive UC she would have accepted her claimant commitments, which actually emphasise you must report any changes in your circumstances prompty "including any changes to work". As always we dont get the full picture, but if she has been charged with benefit fraud there is clearly more to this then just a misunderstanding....
Social workers have an in depth knowledge of the benefit system. It's very valid to assume a government worker knows the basics of the benefit system.
We do not. In my authority, like most, we refer to our welfare-benefits department. We are not benefits advisors. That being said this particular social worker should have known better. We have only heard the account that this woman has given and I would be interested to hear exactly how the advice was worded...
Hmmm, £30 a month for however long or £16k up front, yeah you can see why it was a tough decision for the DWP! 😂
Honestly, the writer of that article did a pretty crap job... >She said she initially agreed a payment plan with the DWP at £30 per month to cover the overpayments, which she received between 2014 and 2019. > >... > >The only way for the DWP to recover the money was to prosecute Mrs Groom, so she was charged with benefit fraud offences. That second paragraph isn't a quote from the DWP (if it is, it's not written as one), it's a statement. So which is it? Was the "only way" to recover the money to prosecute her and have her charged with benefit fraud, or had they agreed a payment plan with her so she could repay what she owed in smaller installments as she had claimed? Both of those things can't be true at the same time. If there was a payment plan in place as this woman claims, then fuck the DWP.
Commits benefit fraud. Punished for benefit fraud. *shocked Pickachu face*
>Speaking outside court on Wednesday, her husband, Geoff, told the BBC his wife had been "penalised for looking after her mum". ...I mean, she was penalised for the crime of benefit fraud. Looking after your mum is not a crime, and not what she was prosecuted for. If I drop my kid off at school and then murder someone on the way home, can I claim I'm being "penalised for caring for my child?"
Yes, but make sure you do the compoface!
DWP are truly awful. I was overpaid on my part time wages for 6 months by about £100 a month, my boss realised and told me I had to pay it back and sent some info to DWP, they then decided they had overpaid me child tax credit and took 6 months of overpayment back in just 2 months and left me with absolutely nothing, I went overdrawn just to pay the rent, no money for food for me and my then young daughter. Thankfully my work were kinder and waited 3 months before starting to claim back their overpayment, I told DWP I was paying it back to my employer but they said it didn’t matter, at the time I got it I had more money than I had declared so it’s irrelevant I’m paying it back now. So I lost the money twice and at the low income I was on it took me about a year to stop going into the red each month. Thank goodness for food banks who helped out or we wouldn’t have eaten.
Frankly let her have the cash, billionaires inheritance with 0 tax is the real problem with society
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40% tax on £10bn goes a very long way, and people who are in these situations will be a lot better supported, leading to easing of restrictions.
Carers allowance and benefits are shit anyway. Id much rather they went after billionaires, cut down on tax loop holes, and went after people who ripped off the county with fake PPE companies etc during covid instead.
Paying 17k at £30 a month (she'd be long 'gone' before it was paid for) and then ending up having 16k in her account. My heart bleeds.
I hope Scottish Declan is caught one day
What a fucking rat she is
While I totally agree that people who defraud the DWP should be prosecuted, I’m bound to wonder how many small & large businesses and wealthy individuals who commit tax fraud to the tune of £16,000 would even be made to pay it back let alone be punished for it.
Should read - Cheshire woman thought she could get away with it.
Another benefit cheat caught. Good stuff.