[Kursk]

Originally Posted by rogerdraig

divert i thought i gave you an easy way to report it ( prety sure the link was there)

what would i do about it NOTHING other than investigating reported information as
its below the rate worth bothering about and is costing more to chase than it gets back

This government feels the same see page 1020 DLA Fraud

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...e-feb-2016.pdf

I don't want someone on it who is fit and well but i also don't want people being harassed because of the way the press especially goes after it

A friend of mine was verbally abused on two occasions in the last year by some random person who decided because they couldn't see her disability that it was fine to shout at her for using a disabled bay with out having a wheelchair. ( if you visit some of the disability forums you will find this is becoming more common )

that is what worrying about an insignificant figure is doing and yes i don't think £70 million is worth that sort if abuse

At what point do you consider it worth bothering about? As £70m "isn't much in the grand scheme of things" when should the fraud be addressed? At £100m? £200m? Never? This is not a baiting question; I assume there is a point at which you would feel enough is enough?

And do you think that disabled people are being challenged more often because others perceive that abuse of the system is on the increase or reached an (unchecked and) unacceptable level? I agree that the verbal abuse experienced by your friend is unpleasant; could it be a collateral consequence of the relaxed attitude toward cheats?

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

70 million sounds a lot until you put it into context of government spending at which point like it or not it's a trivial amount. We would all prefer a zero fraud figure but that's not possible there will always be some who will fiddle just as some do with their taxes and that problem is costing us significantly more. Aggression towards claimants has increased and absolutely correct about disability forums many people are being attacked and intimidated by some because the media has made a mountain out of a molehill aided by certain politicians and the rhetoric they use.

As for how can I debunk a paper I don't read very easy when I see multiple articles quoted as saying e-cigarettes are more harmful and dangerous then tobacco or that e-cigarettes will renormalise tobacco smoking and nice flavours will encourage children to get into smoking. The daily mail has been one of the very worst in misinformation on e-cigarettes that's how I can debunk something I do not read.

Back to the topic there comes a point where what you expend outweighs what you can collect and fraud within some of our benefits has reached that point, numerous reports have clearly stated fraud within the welfare system is not high though what there is is undesirable and we compare favourably to many nations. Trouble is it's such a damn easy scapegoat for lazy and inept politicians and there are always media outlets happy to create a problem and get us at each other's throat.

If I don't pay my Council tax the system will eventually send me to jail. If I don't pay a speeding fine, the system will double my penalty and pursue me to the ends of the Earth until I pay or send me to jail. There are mechanisms for enforcing the law. Benefit cheats should be pursued as enthusiastically as people who won't pay their Council Tax or who speed imho.

As I mention above, unless the process of law is seen to be relentlessly promoted for all types of crime, attitudes to those perceived as getting away with it will harden and others will get caught in the crossfire. I understand the point you are making but, generally speaking, doing nothing when something is wrong has proved a soft option with wider ramifications.

Originally Posted by martyh

£70 million is a lot of money ,the problem is that relentlessly chasing all fraud can lead to genuine claimants being victimised ,assumptions being made that all claimants are fraudsters or lazy sods ,you yourself admit to sitting in Kwik Fit and making a judgement based purely on what you saw ,then you started a thread based on the assumption that the people you saw where somehow fiddling the system ,if i'm honest i've probably done that myself as have a lot of other people .It's ok to try to stop fraud but becoming fixated on stopping it leads to problems for genuine claimants

Ok, you have mentioned Kwik fit again and for fun I googled kwikfit/motability/fraud (or something like that) and it threw back this:

EIGHT Kwik-Fit bosses have been sacked after an inquiry into a scheme allowing free repairs for disabled drivers. The managers, all from Scots branches, were among 32 who were suspended after a series of raids last month. The majority have returned to work. Kwik-Fit are scrutinising repairs dating back to 2003 when the firm were first awarded the £30million contract for the Government's Motability programme. The investigation has focused on claims of systematic abuse of the deal, which gives 520,000 disabled drivers free tyres, exhausts and brakes at Kwik-Fit. Workers are alleged to have defrauded the scheme to line their own pockets.

It is an old report, I have no idea if it is true or not but, well, there you go.

The last 3 posts have been more constructive thank you. For my part, I do accept that my OP was lazily constructed. It was meant as a conversation starter not as some pre-planned, deeply considered, vindictive attack that seems to be the way it has been taken. After that the usual firing from the hip ensued.