Families where no one has ever worked, nor wanted to, and claim all the benefits they can.

The only thing I am taking onboard from latter posts is this, 'issues ' 'indignancies' 'having to prove your illness was genuine' were there whilst governments of ' all colours ' have been in power and it's a point worth remembering sometimes.

I say that having personal experience of the 'system' from the year 2000 onwards.

It's perhaps a pity you did resurrect it, given the trouble it's caused.

What about Anya's comments? Or is she also on your 'no point in replying' list?

Sigh...

Ana, why do you think I resurrected the thread?
My bigger picture is very different to yours.
That's why there's no point in replying to your comments.

Obviously not to you.

Still no point, Ana.

But we didn't know that, did we, Galen?
If they send you a form to fill in, you do as you're told, in case they stop your benefit and leave you with nothing to pay your bills.

My husband died at age 59 from Ca colon. He had had a kidney transplant several years before. The immunosuppressives probably contributed to the cancer

Shouldn't have had one every year!
You should have queried or appealed sending medical evidence!
(The people who made the decisions were very poorly trained and told not to ask for medical advice!
Blame Hugh Rossi!
Non of us liked the new allowance and thought the old AA one better. Every claimant was examined by a doctor and the report sent to an especially trained doctor who then sent for extra reports if necessary and then made the decision

?

Sorry, Galen, that wasn't directed at you.
He claimed incapacity benefit, and DLA.
All the questionnaires and examinations were for DLA.
I have, slowly, thrown out all the paperwork, as it's not something I like to be reminded of.
He died of a brain tumour, anyway, six months after his 65th birthday, so they never called him in again, as they were more interested in getting younger people off the system.

Why? It isn't always about you. My own DH had multiple problems before he died 18 months ago, but I choose not to post about most family matters on here. I prefer to look at the bigger picture.

No point.

I'm sorry DJ are you sure all these exams were for the same benefit?
It's unfortunate, but, the different branches don't talk to each other and have slightly different definitions! It drives us crazy as well.
There were in those days at least 3 benefits he could have been claiming.
IVB
DLA
IIDB if it the accident was at work.
These would have necessitated a separate exam for each benefit.
A one year award of DLA would have been very unusual.
The minimum was was usually 2 years

Those who deliberately milk the system, and they do exist, are the one taking money out of a system designed to help those in genuine need, like your late DH DJ.

Someone always has to make the rules. Wasn't it Gandhi who said something about 'enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed' ? And by that I don't mean that those who genuinely need financial help are greedy - those are the needy ones - I'm talking about the fraudsters who take from the needy by manipulating the system.

Because we can only go by what we read in the press (not just the DM!) and by our own experiences.

From what you say, it should have been obvious to anyone that your husband was disabled and of course he wasn't singled out for what you consider to be unfair treatment by the authorities.

When ordinary working people are having to tighten their belts because money is scarce and pay-rises are rare, it's human nature to resent those perceived to be 'milking the system'. It's not just this country.

Beside the point. He died in January, 2012 before they asked him to have a review.

The point is that he felt for over ten years, as if he was considered a fraud.
And he shouldn't have. It was just because there was so much suspicion about.
He could be one of the people that those on here are talking about......I know somebody who never worked for fifteen years but he went into pubs.
Usually to sit down, or use the toilet because he'd messed his pants or his legbag needed emptying.
He had to use the disabled toilets because he might fall over using an ordinary one, and I used to have to go in with him. He looked quite normal. I bet lots of people thought he shouldn't be using that toilet.

There are far too many people ready to condemn what they see without knowing the facts.

Today there are five people going to court to challenge the bedroom tax.
A woman who has spina bifida has to pay bedroom tax because her husband is not allowed a bedroom of his own despite the fact that they cannot share a bedroom. She needs a hospital bed, with special equipment and they cannot get another bed in the room. They have a two bedroom flat and have to pay bedroom tax for his bedroom.
They have been turned down by two courts already.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/29/disabled-people-challenge-bedroom-tax-at-supreme-court

I despair of the country that we are turning into. Someone makes the rules that we have to live by. Someone has turned us into a suspicious nation. Why?

You could have gone to appeal about the length of the award.
I think that they were harder hearted in the north.
If they had taken medical advice I am sure a longer award would have been given.
The trouble was that the decision makers were lay people who had virtually no training and were told that medical advice was unnecessary and was NOT TO BE REQUESTED.

My husband had DLA from when he was 50 to 65 when he died.
He had fallen off a ladder and broken his back. He was in permanent pain, losing his balance, falling over, could only walk a few yards and then have to stop.
He had to fill in the same forms with the same information every year, having to relive the accident, the operations to his spine, the pain in his spine and his legs, the fact that he was doubly incontinent from the fracture.
We had doctors who did not know him coming to the house, watching him stand up and sit down, walk up stairs one foot at a time, holding onto the rail with both hands. They watched him in the kitchen, trying to peel potatoes, and they listened to his slurred speech.
It was only when he was 62 and two years after he had been diagnosed with cerebellar ataxia that they decided he could be given it for life without any more interviews.
If he'd lived past 65, that would have changed again because of this suspicion of people trying to defraud.
Everything the DWP does is to save money from those who have little.

Pardon me if this post is not calm. It is well informed and to the point.

So in fact there are probably far more claiming benefits either fraudulently or unfairly because of the disinclination to report family members/neighbours etc. After all, the official statistics only include proven cases.

Nazi / Stasi. That sums it up so well. You just don't do it.

You couldn't, the support you offered was far more important. The only time I have reported a neighbour was when another neighbour and I thought she was abusing her small children.
They were renting the house, we rang the NSPCC but they did a moonlight flit that night (not for the first time we found out).
Hope they caught up with her.

Jalima- I agree with you about the Nazi/Stasi feel of reporting on friends, family and neighbours. As I said earlier, confidentiality was an issue for me but the main issue that would have stopped me reporting, was the desire to proactively support a family. How could you do that at the same time as phoning some benefit hot line?

I have thought, and what I think is that, whilst I believe benefit fraud is wrong, I would probably not report someone I knew who I suspected was defrauding the system.

That smacks to me of the Nazis and the Stasi, reporting on your 'friends' and neighbours.

Sorry, forgot myself there, I am not in charge of the thread or any other and have no right to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't say.
Just wish some of you would grow up and think about what is important.

Surely that is a contradiction?
Perhaps not, as you have not told us to post about what is important, only to think about it.

I will go away to think.

Stansgran
I think that benefit fraud hurts most the people who work

I think it also hurts people who are genuine benefit claimants for two reasons - one is that it takes money away from the pot which is available and two, it does antagonise everyone (as well as people in work and it must annoy other, genuine claimants) to hear about these fraudulent cases.
The statistics quoted are only the ones known about.