BENEFITS AND VERY STRANGE FRIEND!!

Did anyone read the Nick Ross article at the weekend. He has come to accept that the more opportunity ' out there' for people to do wrong; the more people do.

but I still ponder as to how people that don't really need the financial help are actually able to just go along to Food Banks and pick up free grub - I'm a raw recruit on the subject as I've not been to the bank myself, but assumed there was some sort of vetting proceedure in place to ensure the genuingly needy receive help over the not-so-needy (and no, I'm not calling anyone a scrounger)

In an ideal world everybody would pay every penny of tax without using every worm hole to avoid it and benefits would always go only to those in genuine need, but the world isn't perfect and just because some people cheat on benefits and food banks is not a good reason not to support food banks, many people are in dire poverty and need them.

I would rather give food and/or money knowing some of it will go to cheats rather than know someone genuinely in need will be unable to get help because I will only donate to those charities that can guarantee that not one cheat will benefit from their aid, an impossible promise.

petra

Just reading about the family from Brighton who were fraudulently claiming benefits for their disabled children. The children were attending private schools, were fully fit and had appeared in West End shows. The family was receiving, tax free, over £10,000 per month - equivalent to a £215,000pa salary. This fraud continued, at various levels over eight years.

Notwithstanding the fact that the claim was fraudulent, are checks not made when these vast sums are being paid out to one family?

I am aware it isn't the norm, I am aware that the vast majority of benefit claimants are genuine but there is abuse of the system. It is our money. I just hope the reforms to the system will make this sort of abuse, impossible.

Totally agree, Ana. Back to OP. I actually saw this with my own eyes and it was my own Sister.
She was one of life's takers ( including from me)
One night the 'tally man' came for the payment on the suite. She convinced him she was so poor HE GAVE HER MONEY!!
She was getting all her benefits and working full time!

...erm, crossing fingers and toes and anything else that can be crossed

No, I was thinking exactly the same thing Ana

It's very refreshing to hear Gransnetters saying what they really feel about certain sections of society taking advantage of the benefits system and apparent problems with food banks distribution without being immediately shot down for their opinions. I may have spoken too soon, of course...

Thanks harrigran, that's what I'm beginning to realise as well (that Food Banks are being abused). It's a shame, because for me personally, I'd sometimes angelically throw something into the Food Bank box on my way out of the local Supermarket, but after this, I shan't bother.

What a cheek, sponging off you and then taking from the food bank. Goose this man must be a very special friend for you to open your house to the couple. I had DS and DIL live with me for five months and I know how much extra work it causes.
I believe food banks are abused and it is a great shame.

Well, there's an olde worlde saying that goes something on the lines of 'never a lender nor a borrower be', maybe another version should be - 'never a mug or a giver be'...but I'm still left wondering how these Food Bank thingy's work

Goose Forgive me if I say that they must have taken you for a sitting duck. I am afraid I would have behaved more like an irate swan if it had been me.

Too late, of course. His parents should have done that long ago.

I am saying nothing!

Goose, you are a saint! They have such a cheek, it is time they had a reality check and grew up! What a shame your friend could not have fed and entertained them, just asking you to let them sleep at your place if he had no room. You will breath a sigh of relief next weekend (all being well).

It's strange finding this thread today as I've been seething over the situation I'm in. I was asked by a friend if I could temporarily take in his son and girlfriend for a while because the shared house they were going to live in fell through.
Neither of them work - he's 35 and she's 24. They've both been on benefits of some sort virtually since they left school, and are currently claiming long term Incapacity Benefit for depression, amongst other benefits.
They've been here 4 weeks (thankfully they go this weekend) during that time they haven't done any washing, cooked anything in the gas oven (everything's cooked in the microwave) dirty crockery's left everywhere...it's like living with a couple of moody teenagers. They claim they're too poor to pay me anything, yet can order delivery pizza's (which I wouldn't dream of doing). The icing on the cake came last week when they mooched off for an hour, victoriously returning with a large cardboard box of food from the local Food Bank - non of yer 'value' stuff either, it was more tin salmon that Pot-Noodles! This was after sending out for a pizza the previous night (costing around £12). I get less money than they do but in all honesty wouldn't dream of using a food bank...but I wonder what the criteria of these Banks are? I thought they were for families, not single, childless people.

whenim64, I think you are being less than fair, terryb's comments reflect the tone of other of other postings on this thread and his attitude is not gender driven.

I had a friend who worked all her life to get from a disadvantaged childhood to a secure and well paid job. However around 2002 she was made redundant four years short of retirement and simply could not get another job at a comparable pay. As she still had a mortgage she decided to sell up in the south and buy a house for cash in a northern port city she knew from many decades before. She could then take any work that kept body and soul together because she had no mortgage or rent to pay.

Unfortunately her new next door neighbours were the same age as her and hadn't worked since the man was made redundant from his job as a docker in the late 1970s. They too just milked the system, which can be done. They too thought she was a mug for working and continuing to look for work even after she drew her pension. She in her turn, reached a state where she couldn't even speak to them because she found their state of complacent welfare dependency so repellent.

terry you remind me of bentley and Frank/hunter. Do you all know each other by any chance? You three men write about the same money, benefits, housing, pension issues.

terryb you may think yourself a mug but at least you can hold your head up proudly I know that doesn't help you financially but I know who I would rather be.

I used to work at a local factory, that shut down in 1989, I went out and got another job (less money and more hours) and trimmed my lifestyle accordingly , however my 'Friend' refused to take a job for less than he was earning, and went on the social.

As he was renting his house and had 2 children living at home, he asked for (and got) benefits, over the years (he has never worked again), he has boasted about how easy it is to 'Milk' the system, and he runs a car, has a holiday every year, and always seems to be able to go out for a drink.

A while ago, speaking about living costs, he told me that I was a MUG for working, and looking around, I think he may have been right!.

I am now retired,and because I have always looked after my money, apart from my government pension, I am not entitled to any benefits as I have 'Too many assets'.

Am I a Mug- Yes - I believe I am.
Terry

Some people are just leaches. About thirty years ago my aunt and uncle befriended a young family at church. My A&U were childless and somewhat other worldly and as there were 6 children in the family and they had a simple stripped down lifestyle my A&U mistook this for poverty despite both parents being teachers. Over about 15 years my relations bought the children clothes, paid for courses, even gave them money and, despite being non-drinkers always kept a bottle of the father's favourite whisky in the cupboard, which I was expected to get duty free for them when I went to France.

Being same age as said family DH & I could see through them. They lived in an expensive house that suggested a very large deposit or a very large mortgage and their 'simple' living was more style than poverty. After my aunt died, when my uncle was struggling on his own, they never went near him. When he became ill and needed to go into care I had a lot of contact with his neighbours, all asked whether this family had been near him and when I said not, all confirmed what I had long believed, that they were leaches who recognised a good opportunity when they saw it and just cut my uncle out of there lives when they realised the gravy train had stopped. I estimate my A&U probably spent well over £30,000 on this family over the years, money that would otherwise have gone to a local charity.

The Benefit system is not really a good one IMHO, people that need it don't get it and people that are healthy and could go to work do..our friends neighbor had to apply for Benefits after becoming seriously ill, when he was assessed he was told that he was not entitled to any help, he later died just weeks after being refused help.. that man paid NI all his life..

There used to be a man sitting begging near a shop I use and one day I asked him why he was not at work, I said to him you are a young healthy man you have something to offer the world why do you choose to sit and beg, I said to him I am 50 but still I work.

I no longer give money to beggars because they spend it on bad things, They I will usually just buy them a sandwich and give them that instead of cash..

Celebgran you as a human being have done your best, you have been very kind to the girl but she has not appreciated it...alcoholics do get themselves in bad situations and become bad people, maybe that is what has happened here. As others have said its the poor little boy that I feel sorry for, bless him..

I used to have a friend about 20 years ago who had 5 children and no husband. She lived on benefits and did some part time work too. She was in the habit of buying fridges, TVs and washing machines on HP then she would make a few payments and then stop. When the items were repossessed she would replace them from another shop. She always assured us that no one would put her in prison as she had small children - and no one ever did. The thing that annoyed us was that she kept on boasting that she was raising all her children single handed - our feeling was that she was doing it on our hard earned taxes!

when I grew up my mum had food and toy parcels from the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church and the Welfare lady (social services) every Xmas. It was a godsend to her as she was really poor living on National Assistance money as it was then. My dad had left and she was bringing up 3 children on her own. Now that was real poverty not like they think of poverty today. Our clothes came from jumble sales, we didnt have a fridge or a washing machine and tea was often banana sandwiches or mash peas and gravy. Shopping was on the book til payday at the corner shop. But my mum did save enough for a week in a caravan every year for us to have a holiday.

Celebgran

I feel sorry for you but you know your right. [fwine]