Unemployment and Benefits

[Ian Ralph]

original topic unemployment and benefits- difficult as now seeing the third generation of claiments within one family, Its now a family tradition and you know how defensive people can be about tradition....
Online fraud- I bank, shop,take payments for my business and send money from my mobile(yes to the kids) all online, and i do this Knowing just how easy online fraud is to commit as I see it every day in one form or another.
so easy is the harvesting of card information from so called secure websites it has led to card details being sold on known hack sites for as little as $5 per 1000.  A friend in the banking system tells me each branch get notifications of known fraudulent transactions sent to them weekly, however it is not up to the bank to notify thier customer, more for the bank to have a heads up should the customer come in to complain. The reason I continue to bank and trade online is because everything is recorded and despite having a debit card cloned an account drained to the max o/draft allowance and paypal freezing my balance for a week I have always had all my money back and in the case of the bank account transfers recieved compensation for inconvenience £15.00 (its the thought that counts)
what is annoying is that very few are ever caught or prosecuted.

[Ian]

what is annoying is that very few are ever caught or prosecuted.

Good to hear from you, Ian :-))

Is that mainly because so many of the card fraud cases are instigated by people whose geographical location makes them next to impossible to prosecute? Chinese and Far East card fraud seems endemic.

[DaveR]

In the Sunday Times today, they had a big features on the cutbacks to come. One of the featured people was a woman complaining bitterly because her £140 a month Child Benefit was going to be cut.  Thing is, she earns £36,000 a year and her husband earns £90,000 a year. So, a family income of £126,000 a year and she thinks she's entitled to benefits!! She's no better than a dole scrounger, in my view, just pure greed.  :rage:  :rage:  :rage:

[Ian]

They were rather canny in tackling child benefits; most people think in the same vein, I suspect.  Not sure there's a case for things like the pensioner fuel allowance, either;  £250 given to everyone who has an over-60 in the household seems odd.   

[Tillymint]

Not sure how true this is because I haven't looked into it ..... a friend has told me that all pensioners get the winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments, including ex pats living in Spain etc. What is that all about??

[Ian]

If they maintain an address in the UK, then yes;  they will.

[Hugo]

Cameron was on TV again tonight trying to defend the decision to cap housing benefit at £20K.   Now I'm no fan of his but I can't see how any one can object to this as many people in this area who work full time have to live on less than £20k per annum and their taxes pay for these benefits.
That extreme example I quoted previously of an unemployed Somali with 7 children claiming £96K just in housing benefits just shows that the system was in drastic need of an overhaul and it is long overdue.   :rage:

[DaveR]

You've hit the nail on the head there, Hugo. The Govt have been very shrewd in ensuring that the changes to things like Child and Housing Benefit cannot be seen as anything other than fair by the working person in the UK. It cannot be right that any family receives tens of thousands of pounds in Housing Benefit to live in an area of London where the vast majority of working people would not have a hope of being able to live.

[Ian]

But as long as we're signed up to the European Human Rights convention, what can we do?

[DaveR]

But as long as we're signed up to the European Human Rights convention, what can we do?

I think the Govt's done it, Ian, Housing Benefit is being capped at £20,000 per year. That still seems pretty generous to me.

[Ian]

I'll wait to see if that actually happens, I think.

[DaveR]

I don't think they can be seen to back down on it now, and most people support the measure, I suspect.

[Hugo]

It's unbelievable that the government are giving so much away in various benefits and more annoying that people think it is their human right not to have to work for things they want to buy.
The example of alcoholics getting an extra allowance for something that after all is self inflicted is quite annoying , as many a working class person would like to enjoy a drink socially but have to economise on things like that because of the present financial climate.

[Ian]

I'm not sure alcoholism is self inflicted, any more than claustrophobia or arachnophobia. All are examples of mental illnesses, albeit distinctly anti-social ones, although I suppose most mental illness is manifested through anti-social behaviours. 

[Yorkie]

Are you saying I'm mental? 

As Arfer English would say, "Play the music, open the cage!"    Z**