Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

[TomThumb]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

If this carzy plan goes through, the ICO will be even busier than they already are!

Well we can always go the court route as its faster....

.....oh hold on........ MOJ to shed 15000 workers

S.

[Angry Cat]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

Well we can always go the court route as its faster....

.....oh hold on........ MOJ to shed 15000 workers

S.

Ah, the MoJ:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...stry-cuts.html

The cuts include proposals to close 103 magistrates’ courts and 54 county courts, which amounts to 40 per cent of the 530 currently open.


Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, said: ‘This is the first indication of the true scale of the cuts being imposed upon departments by this coalition Government, and it paints a devastating picture.’

He warned there would be prison closures and a courts system in chaos, because the civil service would ‘simply not be able to cope’.

[MIKE770]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

Bounty Hunters - now there is a thought,

[Angry Cat]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

Now here is an idea.

Perhaps, all the so-called benefit fraudsters, can do their 'community service' by working in the courts;
they could also help out at the ICO, as that dept., will also be overflowing with complaints.

There will be insufficient Mag. courts for their trial;
no room in the prisons (they are already full to overflowing)

So, it seems a sensible solution: Giving something back to the community...

[FCC]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

Whilst they are scanning my bank account what's to stop them looking into " honest " peoples accounts and selling that information on to the Banks and DCA's etc. I personally have nothing to fear from any honest investigation but expect honesty from a CRA YEAH RIGHT!! Yet if the DWP were to discover that I have been paying, out of my pittance up to Ł150 per month to my creditors for over 10 years without any other income stream then, maybe, they will realise just what we have gone without in order to fulfill my obligation with honour. Perhaps I should, as others have done, just sent them Ł1.00 a month for all these years. I blame those pillocks who voted these t***pots in. Never mind we're all in this together. Ha! Ha!

[shamen]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

credit reporting agency LTD have just popped this nugget out. While they claim to be independent they seem to be able to edit my callcredit report directly and i have heard rumors that they are one in the same.

How deep can the government dig in a bid to catch benefit cheats?
David Cameron has announced plans to use information from personal credit files to combat benefit fraud that costs the UK economy up to Ł1 billion a year. Many have expressed concerns about what information is going to be visible to the government and for what purposes it may end up being used.
Credit files offer a wealth of information about individuals. The most sensitive data is your payment history, which shows how you have managed your credit agreements over the past six years.
At the moment there is no plan to allow the government access to this. Before access can be permitted, unless the law is changed, the government would have to supply monthly information to the agencies, and the consent clause you sign on credit agreements would need to be much more detailed than it is right now.
Other parts of your credit report are much less sensitive. The credit agency versions of the Electoral Roll currently enable the agencies to verify whether someone claiming Single Person Occupancy discount for council tax really does live alone.
The government ‘owns’ and controls the Electoral Roll of course, so should in theory be able to do this themselves, but under the new proposals it seems that ‘movers’ data will also be used to help prevent this type of fraud. Credit agencies obtain movers data from both credit searches and the monthly updates that lenders send to the agencies.
The same sources enable the agencies to identify any people financially associated to you or believed to be living at your address, and this is also to be used to help prevent fraud, as are the various fraud databases which the agencies own or have access to.
Only those with something to hide should be concerned about this new proposal.

Nothing to fear subject, unless you have something to hide. Sounds familiar.

So sounds like they are interested in address links and financial connections. Though a big thing they missed out is that they could use the electoral roll to search who else lives at your address - are they claiming benefits too? Or do their tax records show they have a hefty income?

Keep an eye out for changes to the law and changed to credit agreements incase they try to start snooping the actual financial information. They also dont touch on what the impact may be to obtaining credit if your report has hits for benefits searches.

[Jim25]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

My wife and I had to have partial rent and council tax rebates over the years due to lack of funds.
We have 6 adult children between us. Our children over the years have needed loans which my wife and I got for them in our name. All the loans were payed back in full using our bank account one of our daughters collected the repayments at sporadic times and placed the money in our account that same daughter had the card and often purchased what we required with the card. My wife has another account that her sickness benefit was payed into funds from that account were often taken out and placed in the account used for loans etc. We did not think we were doing anything wrong. But because we filled in the rent and ctax forms for a rebate and forgot to mention the account relating to loans we are being accused of being cheats. The loan repayments are being classed as unearned income and we are being taken to the criminal court. My wife has multiple Autoimmune disorders and the stress is killing her. Our council want almost Ł17,000 back this is crazy but we have no way out of this mess. So anyone on benefits or rent and ctax rebate beware personal loans will be classed as unearned income. If you have a credit card and you allow your family to use it and pay you back you could find yourself in trouble with that as well. I wish someone had warned my wife and I we gained no financial reward for any of this, just the good feeling you get when you help your family. Now we will be branded as benefit cheats this is truly awful.

[Jim25]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

Forgot to mention it seems David Cameron has given local councils unprecedented powers to do as they please a bank or credit card account can and will be interpreted any way they chose.
The council can do as they please. We wrote to them explaining about the bank accounts and loans yet despite us being able to prove we had them and paid them back. They are refusing to accept this and insist on going down the unearned income route. We feel stitched up like kippers.
This raises a question if I obtain a loan from the social fund will this be classed as unearned income?
Or if I get a payday loan ?

[PAWS]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

Reports of people whose benefits were erroneously stopped are harrowing. One woman had become so malnourished she had stopped producing milk to feed her baby. In this country in this century!
Now independent commercial companies will be the government grasses or bounty hunters as referred above. As most of us know the CRAs get it wrong. We also know that trying to get your credit file corrected is like peeing into the wind. Indiscriminate, unfair and even unlawful defaults and CCJs are ruining lives. We know they get it wrong but when anyone tries to point this out they are accused of trying to avoid debt repayment or the consequences of being irresponsible! The smug moralists believe that only scum with fraudulent intent would complain about the information the CRAs and DWP gather.
Yes, well remember when everyone believed you could always trust the police, priests and Doctors
Now I don’t expect David Cameron and the rest of the Chipping Norton set to have any idea what real life is like but are they all stark raving mad!!!!!
By the way, has the government thought of checking out the banks credit files before they loan them our money? A*****les.

[Mr $quandaŁot]

Re: Experian to check on Benefit Cheats

What I struggle to accept is the fact that it's ok for MPs and ministers to cheat the system. Shouldn't Maria Miller be behind the bars:

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26951464

How long is this piss-taking going to last?

I think most people on the social cheat because the system and rules are impossible to understand. Even most advisers don't know the rules so how are what they call customers supposed to?

Has anyone else noticed how we are slowly becoming a totalitarian state? Our personal lives are being watched like never before, yet the chosen elite don't have to play by the same rules!