# Fraudulent collection of employment benefit



## MsGinger (11 Jul 2008)

We were told that an ex-employee has been signing on in Ireland once a month but living in Poland and flying back once a month on a cheap Ryanair flight to sign on and collect his money each month.  Obviously if he is living (and possibly working, this I'm not sure of) in Poland, he is not available and seeking work in the state, so this is a fraudulent collection of state benefits.

I'm not suggesting that this will only happen with foreigners, I'm well aware that there are probably many Irish people also fraudulently collecting employment payments but the above is just an example.

As a lot of construction employees are not permanent residents of the state, this could happen a lot more in future.

What, if any, procedures are in place with the DFSA to prevent this from happening?

This person has been reported to the DFSA who have said they will investigate.


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## jasonr (11 Jul 2008)

Bring back weekly signing on I say!!!!!!


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## csirl (11 Jul 2008)

> Bring back weekly signing on I say!!!!!!


 
Daily signing where you have to turn up and do some community work, training or attend a job club would be a good idea.


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## csirl (11 Jul 2008)

What address is he giving? I assume he's using an Irish address. No doubt the owner of the property wont be impressed about his place being used for fraud - maybe someone should tip him off.


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## jhegarty (11 Jul 2008)

csirl said:


> Daily signing where you have to turn up and do some community work, training or attend a job club would be a good idea.



+1

I bet unemployment would drop like a stone if they did that....


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## ClubMan (11 Jul 2008)

csirl said:


> Daily signing where you have to turn up and do some community work


How would the unemployed person look for permanent employment then?


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## Guest117 (11 Jul 2008)

ClubMan said:


> How would the unemployed person look for permanent employment then?


 

How about they would look for work in the same manner as anyone who is employed


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## Welfarite (11 Jul 2008)

Yes, picture the scene: 200,000 people turning up at 57 offices country wide to "sign on" every day. And how many extra civil servants would need to be employed to administer/monitor this?


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## jhegarty (11 Jul 2008)

ClubMan said:


> How would the unemployed person look for permanent employment then?




I am sure there would be no problem giving them the day off every time they have an interview... plus each day could include time for job searching...


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## runner (11 Jul 2008)

Yes, picture the scene: 200,000 people turning up at 57 offices country wide to "sign on" every day. And how many extra civil servants would need to be employed to administer/monitor this?

Around 200,000 i'd imagine!


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## rmelly (11 Jul 2008)

runner said:


> Yes, picture the scene: 200,000 people turning up at 57 offices country wide to "sign on" every day. And how many extra civil servants would need to be employed to administer/monitor this?
> 
> Around 200,000 i'd imagine!


 
Nah, you couldn't hire more than 100,000 of them - after all they need people to 'monitor'.


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## csirl (11 Jul 2008)

I doubt it would be 200,000. Maybe some of the unemployed people could do the monitoring as part of their community work?


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## johnwilliams (11 Jul 2008)

ms ginger 
slightly off your topic . a friend of mine has told me that he knows of a couple of people  who have brought their children over from poland to get children allowance and then kids are sent back home to poland once allowance is got


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## Berni (11 Jul 2008)

johnwilliams said:


> ms ginger
> slightly off your topic . a friend of mine has told me that he knows of a couple of people  who have brought their children over from poland to get children allowance and then kids are sent back home to poland once allowance is got


And there is nothing wrong with that, didn't even need to bring the kids over in the first place.  The parent is entitled to claim in whichever country they reside.


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## alaskaonline (11 Jul 2008)

Berni said:


> The parent is entitled to claim in whichever country they reside.


 
I was always under the impression that the parent(s) would need to live in Ireland for a couple of years and produce a certain number of paid tax and prsi before being able to claim any benefits. Well, that was the case with my German friend and only after they checked if she paid enough tax and prsi in the last two years she lived here, she got her maternity and child benefits approved. Maybe they handle every case differently but I would have thought there is a general rule for every one.


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## ClubMan (12 Jul 2008)

alaskaonline said:


> I was always under the impression that the parent(s) would need to live in Ireland for a couple of years and produce a certain number of paid tax and prsi before being able to claim any benefits.


The posts above are specifically about _*Child *Benefit_. See here.


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## MsGinger (14 Jul 2008)

The guy in question had an Irish address.  We have quite a number of foreign employees, mainly Polish and you can often get 10 or more of them at one address, so there would always be someone there to get his post and let him know if something arrived.


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## Welfarite (14 Jul 2008)

This type of fraudulent claiming is possible by claimants selecting the EFT payment facility, which basically means that money is lodged to a bank account and there is no need for the person to be resident in the state in order to withdraw it. All they have to do is present themselves once every 4 weeks to "sign on". as you say, friends can deal with post to give the impression they are still living in Ireland. SW have now started tovisit non-irish national claimants within 8 weeks of signing on. They also have stopped offering the EFT facility to new claimants.


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## MsGinger (15 Jul 2008)

It's good to know that they have some procedures in place to prevent this.

Now they just need to tackle the unemployed who don't want to work!


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## ClubMan (15 Jul 2008)

MsGinger said:


> Now they just need to tackle the unemployed who don't want to work!


Don't they do this already in various ways - e.g. by requiring evidence that the claimant is genuinely available for and seeking work, that they sign up for training if applicable, putting a time limit on how long _JB _can be claimed before the claimant must revert to means tested _JA _etc.?


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## sidzer (23 Jul 2008)

I Know a guy who was claiming SW in North and working with a builder in the border area. In one week he had two visits to his house and many phone calls from the SW officer. In the end he gave up work as they were hounding him so much........ 

From my limited experience of claiming SW I witnessed builders vans pulling up outside the office to let the lads off the sign and claim. Guys would sign on dressed in their work clothes! I also noticed a large number of northern reg cars droping people off to sign. However there are a large number of NI reg cars in a council estate in my town...

Is there any penalty for making a fraudulent claim? I have never heard of anyone getting done for this!

SW is an important support system for people who are genuinely out of work and job seeking. However, so many make a career out of it and expect the rest of society to house and feed them and their families and frankly this is not fair and breaks the social contract. 

The system needs a major overhawl - weekly collection of money at the PO can easily be made by someones buddy..


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## ClubMan (23 Jul 2008)

sidzer said:


> Is there any penalty for making a fraudulent claim? I have never heard of anyone getting done for this!


*Annual Report 2007 - Dept. of Social and Family Affairs*


> 243 criminal cases were finalised in 2007 with the
> following results:
> Outcome  Number
> Fined  117
> ...


Pretty good success rate for the cases taken it seems!


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## bamboozle (24 Jul 2008)

wasnt Mary Hannifan on the radio last week on this matter and she was saying that out of a sample of 2000 sw claimants something like 10% were found to be either living abroad or claiming through other false pretences.
she was saying that weekly sign-on was coming back in claiming savings of 53million a year will be made.

All well and good but my question is WHY on earth did a situation exist where people can take advantage in the first place, surely there are more than enough civil servants in the dept of social welfare to actually monitor the activities of sw claimants.


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## Caveat (24 Jul 2008)

In fairness to staff at the dept. of SW, I believe that intimidation/threats from those under investigation is quite common.


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## Welfarite (24 Jul 2008)

bamboozle said:


> wasnt Mary Hannifan on the radio last week on this matter and she was saying that out of a sample of 2000 sw claimants something like 10% were found to be either living abroad or claiming through other false pretences.


 
I wonder was that "sample" all non-Irish nationals. I find it hard to believe that 1 in 10 of people claiming the dole don't actually live in the country!



bamboozle said:


> All well and good but my question is WHY on earth did a situation exist where people can take advantage in the first place,


 
 because it's a fact of life that people will find their way around any rule if they want to. 



bamboozle said:


> surely there are more than enough civil servants in the dept of social welfare to actually monitor the activities of sw claimants.


 
There are. There are many posts in this forum complainign about this "monitoring"! This particular "fraud" arose from the department treated SW claimants as human beings and trusting them not to abuse a system that does not montior them too closely. The problem is that because of this abuse, every SW claimant has now to suffer.


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## ClubMan (24 Jul 2008)

bamboozle said:


> wasnt Mary Hannifan on the radio last week on this matter and she was saying that out of a sample of 2000 sw claimants something like 10% were found to be either living abroad or claiming through other false pretences.





Welfarite said:


> I wonder was that "sample" all non-Irish nationals. I find it hard to believe that 1 in 10 of people claiming the dole don't actually live in the country!


Or perhaps _bamboozle _is simply mistaken? Since s/he doens't seem certain about what was said in the first place?


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## jhegarty (24 Jul 2008)

ClubMan said:


> Or perhaps _bamboozle _is simply mistaken? Since s/he doens't seem certain about what was said in the first place?



_bamboozle_ was correct in the quote (meaning if not the exact words). Its 10% are living abroad *or * claiming through other false pretences.


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## DeeFox (24 Jul 2008)

> From my limited experience of claiming SW I witnessed builders vans pulling up outside the office to let the lads off the sign and claim. Guys would sign on dressed in their work clothes!


 
I can't believe they would allow someone to sign on wearing a flurescent jacket or whatever!! Suerly this can't be true? If it is, that is a disgrace.


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## ClubMan (24 Jul 2008)

jhegarty said:


> _bamboozle_ was correct in the quote (meaning if not the exact words). Its 10% are living abroad *or * claiming through other false pretences.


Fair enough. The post seemed to express some uncertainty about the specific of the report/comments.


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## gipimann (24 Jul 2008)

DeeFox said:


> I can't believe they would allow someone to sign on wearing a flurescent jacket or whatever!! Suerly this can't be true? If it is, that is a disgrace.


 
People can sign on if they're working part-time, or the person signing on might be a cyclist, or a learner motorcyclist, so a fluorescent jacket doesn't always mean something nefarious is going on!


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## truthseeker (24 Jul 2008)

When I was in college there was one guy who was was quite proud about the fact that he was registered as the English version of his name with a Dublin address as a college student but was claiming the dole using the Irish version of his name and his country address. So he got SW payments, and a government grant cheque, he had a cash in hand part time job, AND he was getting an education for free.


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## ciars (24 Jul 2008)

I remeber (back in the day) a lot of students in my year were also signing on. In fact it was quite regular to excuse your absence to your tutor by explaining you had to sign on this morning, and this was back when it was weekly signing. 

There's also a programme called 'On the fiddle' on BBC (actually think tonight) about fraud claims in the UK. Unbelievable. Apart from the small scale working/signing cases the amount of large scale fraud is crazy. One elderly woman was on the fiddle to over a million STG.


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## Yachtie (24 Jul 2008)

Welfarite said:


> I wonder was that "sample" all non-Irish nationals. I find it hard to believe that 1 in 10 of people claiming the dole don't actually live in the country!


 
Why? In theory, if your spouse is non-Irish, you bought a house ten years ago, you could have easily sold your house for a huge profit in recent years, moved to your spouse's country of origin where average wage is lower than the Irish SW payments, you could easily claim the dole (as an Irish) to supplement your income. I am sure that _some _of the cases are of such nature. Or, an Irish couple moving to Portugal for cheaper property and better weather. It's not impossible!


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## bamboozle (24 Jul 2008)

Welfarite said:


> I wonder was that "sample" all non-Irish nationals. I find it hard to believe that 1 in 10 of people claiming the dole don't actually live in the country!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 Sorry if my post was not clear enough but i did say through living abroad or through other false pretences


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## Caveat (24 Jul 2008)

Have to say I'm a bit bemused at the apparent surprise expressed at these shenanigans - always regarded dole fraud as very widespead, brazen, and pretty much common knowledge?


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## bamboozle (24 Jul 2008)

Caveat said:


> Have to say I'm a bit bemused at the apparent surprise expressed at these shenanigans - always regarded dole fraud as very widespead, brazen, and pretty much common knowledge?


 

well i was surprised when it was suggested by Hannifin up to 10% of claims were fraudulent, i am also surprised that the dept of social welfare have been facilitating this fraud by idiotically paying money directly into people’s bank account


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## bond-007 (24 Jul 2008)

Nothing idiotic in paying people by bank transfer. Why should people be expected to be at a post office on the same day each week? Also people may not feel safe will all their money in cash. Also it can affect the budgeting of the receiver.


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## tara83 (25 Jul 2008)

Just an off side - will this not open the way for increased post office raids if much larger amounts of cash are going to be held on days known to everyone.  Surely the idea of bank transfer was to cut down on this and also human resources. There must be a better way of assessing the legitamasy of people claiming


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## DublinTexas (25 Jul 2008)

I'm confused here about the "non nationals" examples because if s/he returns to the home country there are 2 options:

a.) They can transfer up to 3 month of Irish benefit to any EU country if they look for work in that country and that includes their "national" home country.

b.) The time they contributed to the Irish PRSI will count towards their own countries unemployment benefit calculation in most states.

So there is no need to jump onto a cheap ryanair flight, there are fully legal options available. Maybe our civil servants should explain that to people.

And in respect of now forcing people to go to the post office, that is bad news for me a customer of the post office. My local post office is already a no go zone on several days because most of the callers are there to collect their social welfare. With no seperate counter or queue for people trying to pay AnPost for sending letters/parcels this is not customer service.


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## Welfarite (25 Jul 2008)

truthseeker said:


> When I was in college there was one guy who was was quite proud about the fact that he was registered as the English version of his name with a Dublin address as a college student but was claiming the dole using the Irish version of his name and his country address. So he got SW payments, and a government grant cheque, he had a cash in hand part time job, AND he was getting an education for free.


 


ciars said:


> I remeber (back in the day) a lot of students in my year were also signing on. In fact it was quite regular to excuse your absence to your tutor by explaining you had to sign on this morning, and this was back when it was weekly signing.


 
quote=truthseeker;676122]Must have been some years ago. Nowadays Sw X-refs with college lists of students (PPSNs now recorded by colleges and county councils) so they've caught up with that one! Must have been a great scam pre-computer days though.




Yachtie said:


> Why? In theory, if your spouse is non-Irish, you bought a house ten years ago, you could have easily sold your house for a huge profit in recent years, moved to your spouse's country of origin where average wage is lower than the Irish SW payments, you could easily claim the dole (as an Irish) to supplement your income. I am sure that _some _of the cases are of such nature. Or, an Irish couple moving to Portugal for cheaper property and better weather. It's not impossible!


 
So you reckon 10% of claimants fall into this category then?


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## truthseeker (25 Jul 2008)

Welfarite said:


> Must have been some years ago. Nowadays Sw X-refs with college lists of students (PPSNs now recorded by colleges and county councils) so they've caught up with that one! Must have been a great scam pre-computer days though.


 
Yeah was thinking about that last night, it WAS some years ago. It was before we all had those little Social Services Cards sent out (pre computer records days for sure) - it wouldnt work today, unless you had 2 of those cards with different numbers. I do know a young lad (15ish) who was sent two of those cards, there is a difference in spelling of his name on them, so he has 2 PPS numbers. (Or had, I think his mother sorted it out when it happened).
On a side note - what age do they send those cards out now?


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