Fraud

While only a small percentage do this, claimants do commit benefit fraud by intentionally claiming benefits they are not entitled to have. Benefit fraud can be committed either by not reporting a change in circumstances or providing false information. If you are suspected of committing fraud, the relevant government department will contact you, and your benefit may come to a stop while investigations proceed. The Fraud Investigation Officers may visit you as well.

 

The most common types of fraud would include

• Claiming while working – If you are seen working the DWP will assume that you are receiving money for doing so, however, you could simply be helping somebody out voluntarily;
• Running a business – if you are a director (named under a limited company at Companies House) then you could argue that you have started one because you are thinking about the idea and are using the pre-launch time for market research to see if the idea is viable;
• Been buying and selling goods (trading) – there may be an argument that you are simply selling items while “having a clear-out” or that the items were bought to keep/start a collection but you simply changed your mind.
• Have been seen being active while claiming disability benefit – the rules for PiP are based on “bad days”, however just because the claimant has the odd “good day” should not be an automatic claim for fraud.

 

We strongly suggest that you do not interact with such officers or attend an interview without professional representation.

 

We strongly suggest that you simply inform them that you will be appointing ourselves (or another solicitor of your choice) to handle the matter and that they should put forward any questions via them. The fraud investigation officers want an easy win, no fuss, one nice easy admission to chalk up, cancel your benefit, possibly top up the DWPs coffers with a nice juicy court fine and move on to the next case. We believe that there may be mitigating arguments, ultimately, as with any case, it is their problem to prove fraud, not for you to defend it. We would not recommend using a duty solicitor as they are paid for by the government and as such have a conflict of interest, they will be familiar with (and hence potentially friendly with) the fraud officers and not want to give them any problems. Finally, they will also be handling probably hundreds of cases and simply won’t have the right amount of time to dedicate to your case.

 

Appointing ourselves, or other professionals will frustrate them and they will try to politely deny you this right, beware phrases such as: -

• “There is no need – it's just an initial chat”
• “We just need the answer to a few questions”
• “If you help us now, we won't progress the matter to court”
• “If you go legal and delay things the court won’t like it”

These interviews are often recorded, and their findings can form part of a criminal investigation against you. Simply saying “sorry” infers that you knowingly (and therefore deliberately) did something you knew was wrong. If found guilty of the fraud, then as well as having to pay the money back you may potentially end up with a criminal record. From a financial perspective your benefits could be reduced or stopped for up to 3 years along with the threat that you could face a potential fine of several thousands of pounds. Before answeering ANY question please ask yourself if you really want to make life easy for them?

 

How we can help

Lestons would be delighted to represent you but if this is after your interview you may have already done too much damage. Put simply the sooner you get representation the better, you should open a case at the instant you receive notification, we will then write to them stating that we are your legal counsel. Your caseworker would automatically request a deferment of any interview to allow our legal team to examine all of the evidence. They would then go through it with you in private to create a detailed explanation of the points which we would file as your defence.

Remember they are there to secure a nice, easy conviction which they will use to take you to court, why would you want to assist them in their aim? Ultimately the end goal will be to provide the investigators with a plausible explanation, or cast doubt that they would secure a win if they pursued it to court.

 

To gain our assistance you need to open a case, this is done by simply clicking on the link at the top of the page, you will then need to deposit a sum equal to one hour’s usage, upon receipt of these funds you will be assigned your personal caseworker who will telephone you to discuss the matter and make suggestions on how to proceed. Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our legal team and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.