Benefit cheats to be caught out by CRA's
Discussion
paulrockliffe said:
Condition of benefits is you give poermission to access the credit rating, would side step that. Except the information isn't yours, it belongs to Experian and the people that generated it, ie the lenders, so that's a non-issue.
I'm intrigued as to how this would work in practice though. The would find out if you were applying for credit and what the balance on your credit card was each month, but they wouldn't know what went in and out of your bank account.
They can see whether you've got a car on finance with Porsche, and who you booked your holiday through!!I'm intrigued as to how this would work in practice though. The would find out if you were applying for credit and what the balance on your credit card was each month, but they wouldn't know what went in and out of your bank account.
!!!
Good idea this.
As much as I don't want to support the Civil Liberties campaigners, does this not give our government a way in to looking at the honest folk, paving a way in for capital gains checks, means testing of taxation etc etc?
Again I see the "if you are being honest, you have nothing to fear" phrase being trotted out, which does not make me feel secure.
As much as I don't want to support the Civil Liberties campaigners, does this not give our government a way in to looking at the honest folk, paving a way in for capital gains checks, means testing of taxation etc etc?
Again I see the "if you are being honest, you have nothing to fear" phrase being trotted out, which does not make me feel secure.
Another laughable headline-grabber from a government that is rapidly turning into a dictionary definition of "all mouth and no trousers".
I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
Ten Ninety said:
Another laughable headline-grabber from a government that is rapidly turning into a dictionary definition of "all mouth and no trousers".
I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
I don't really know if it will work or not, but if £1.5bn of benefits aren't claimed and it costs £1bn to administer it's saved money, so what's the downside?I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
Some people will always get away with it, not sure the fact you can't catch the big fish means you should let the little ones go tbh.
paddyhasneeds said:
Ten Ninety said:
Another laughable headline-grabber from a government that is rapidly turning into a dictionary definition of "all mouth and no trousers".
I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
I don't really know if it will work or not, but if £1.5bn of benefits aren't claimed and it costs £1bn to administer it's saved money, so what's the downside?I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
Some people will always get away with it, not sure the fact you can't catch the big fish means you should let the little ones go tbh.
Paddyhasneeds, you'd better pray that Experian types don't make one of their errors and, mistakenly, you get cast into their net. You'll change your tune...
...bloody fast!
As for your point, some people will always get away with it...
you answered it when you said 'big fish'.
The 'minnows' will get caught, but like I said you might 'mistakenly' be among the 'minnows' in that jam jar. Then try getting out of that jam jar, ie: getting them to admit to their 'mistake'
...you'll find that they 'don't' make mistakes.
Keep those fingers tightly crossed all of you 'I've nothing to fear'.
Where the f
k has the first part of my post gone?
I said something like they can only look into very specific regular financial commitments, such as TV, car loans, etc... Aside from that they don't have any info on your spending habits. It sounds to me like what'll happen is it will throw up 10 million names a year, who fulfil some broadly useless criteria, and give the government new powers to snoop into the personal business of any of them.
k has the first part of my post gone?I said something like they can only look into very specific regular financial commitments, such as TV, car loans, etc... Aside from that they don't have any info on your spending habits. It sounds to me like what'll happen is it will throw up 10 million names a year, who fulfil some broadly useless criteria, and give the government new powers to snoop into the personal business of any of them.
Edited by carmonk on Tuesday 10th August 19:17
Soovy said:
paulrockliffe said:
Condition of benefits is you give poermission to access the credit rating, would side step that. Except the information isn't yours, it belongs to Experian and the people that generated it, ie the lenders, so that's a non-issue.
I'm intrigued as to how this would work in practice though. The would find out if you were applying for credit and what the balance on your credit card was each month, but they wouldn't know what went in and out of your bank account.
They can see whether you've got a car on finance with Porsche, and who you booked your holiday through!!I'm intrigued as to how this would work in practice though. The would find out if you were applying for credit and what the balance on your credit card was each month, but they wouldn't know what went in and out of your bank account.
!!!
what makes you think it needs reforming anyway:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301770/Jo...
Ten Ninety said:
I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants.
dandarez said:
paddyhasneeds said:
Ten Ninety said:
Another laughable headline-grabber from a government that is rapidly turning into a dictionary definition of "all mouth and no trousers".
I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
I don't really know if it will work or not, but if £1.5bn of benefits aren't claimed and it costs £1bn to administer it's saved money, so what's the downside?I mean, what a great idea! Yes, let's use Credit Reference Agencies, those well-known repositories of totally-complete and always-accurate data, to try to root out that massive 1% of fraudulent claimants. Never mind the cost of investigating each 'alert' the system will generate, most of which will turn out to be legitimate. Never mind the cost of the payments made to the CRAs. Never mind the fact that even when you strike lucky the best you're going to do is catch Dipstick Dave who's daft enough to stick his £20 cash-in-hand into the bank each week, whilst the real fraudsters - the ones pulling off the serious-money criminal scams - are already going to be buried well into the black economy that lies quite beyond the reach of Experian's little pantie sniffers.
And above all, let's hope making a fuss about the trivial savings that might be made will distract everyone from the fact that we're doing precious little (other than generating the usual hot-air, guff and soundbites) about the 99% of entirely legitimate claimants who are costing the real billions, enjoying their Sky boxes and plasma screens without recourse to fraud of any kind.
Still, fair play I suppose. Judging from many of the responses on here it looks like it's working...
Some people will always get away with it, not sure the fact you can't catch the big fish means you should let the little ones go tbh.
Paddyhasneeds, you'd better pray that Experian types don't make one of their errors and, mistakenly, you get cast into their net. You'll change your tune...
...bloody fast!
I worked for a year as a volunteer advisor at the Citizens Advice Bureau. To say the benefits/tax credits system is complex is an understatement. Add to this the last governments habit of tinkering with the rules and you have a perfect recipe for error. There is a plethora of rules and regs, and then there is the appeals procedure when applicants are unhappy with decisions. The fact the system loses only 3.7 billion through mistakes I think is not bad going. If IDS gets his way and the whole system is simplified, we should see these mistakes practically eliminated completely.
Morningside said:
Sticks. said:
Fine in itself but a bit of a political vote-winning policy though. Total loss in fraud and mistakes is estimated at £5.2bn, of which £1.5bn is estimated to be fraud and presumably £3.7bn is mistakes. What's being done about the £3.7bn?
Because its hardly a headline grabber is it? Plus it sounds better as 'Government cracks down on benefit scroungers' rather than 'Government wastes £3.7bn due to incompetence'
Soovy said:
paulrockliffe said:
Condition of benefits is you give poermission to access the credit rating, would side step that. Except the information isn't yours, it belongs to Experian and the people that generated it, ie the lenders, so that's a non-issue.
I'm intrigued as to how this would work in practice though. The would find out if you were applying for credit and what the balance on your credit card was each month, but they wouldn't know what went in and out of your bank account.
They can see whether you've got a car on finance with Porsche, and who you booked your holiday through!!I'm intrigued as to how this would work in practice though. The would find out if you were applying for credit and what the balance on your credit card was each month, but they wouldn't know what went in and out of your bank account.
!!!
How do they know about the holiday, I'm struggling to work out where a credit check comes in? I'm not sure that would mean anything without some figures, I suppose it might show several holidays though.
Jackleman said:
How would that prove you are a benefit cheat? If you are entitled to the benefit then how you spend it is surely down to you?
Yes, but I think they will be looking for people who are spending more than they should be in their circumstances, eg. they are saying they are living alone but they have second person in there, or have other undeclared earnings.I think if the criteria is well-defined it will probably work very well, but many of the serious offenders will probably be mostly using cash, and going forward a lot more people will be thinking about keeping as much as possible unrecorded.
Edited by Gareth79 on Wednesday 11th August 00:43
Gareth79 said:
Jackleman said:
How would that prove you are a benefit cheat? If you are entitled to the benefit then how you spend it is surely down to you?
Yes, but I think they will be looking for people who are spending more than they should be in their circumstances, eg. they are saying they are living alone but they have second person in there, or have other undeclared earnings.I think if the criteria is well-defined it will probably work very well, but many of the serious offenders will probably be mostly using cash, and going forward a lot more people will be thinking about keeping as much as possible unrecorded.
What about other dodgy dealings like the drugs trading? 'they' seem to have problems tracing them so I still think this is a bit of pissing in the wind.
prand said:
Good idea this.
As much as I don't want to support the Civil Liberties campaigners, does this not give our government a way in to looking at the honest folk, paving a way in for capital gains checks, means testing of taxation etc etc?
.
My thoughts too.If it is used against benefit cheats,and it proves successful, this tool might find a widespread use afterwards.It becomes "carte blanche" for our government to justify its violation of our civil liberties.We have already seen a sorry case of 'spying' on a family by council officials, so what next?As much as I don't want to support the Civil Liberties campaigners, does this not give our government a way in to looking at the honest folk, paving a way in for capital gains checks, means testing of taxation etc etc?
.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8473167.stm
Apparently tax fraud is estimated to cost us £15m, 10x benefit fraud. Doesn't make for such a vote winning headline though. I'd hoped this govt would put spin before substance like the last one.
Apparently tax fraud is estimated to cost us £15m, 10x benefit fraud. Doesn't make for such a vote winning headline though. I'd hoped this govt would put spin before substance like the last one.
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