Do people agree with this and do you think that this should be done on the wirral?




LIVERPOOL council snoops are to go undercover on Facebook and Twitter to try to snare benefit fraudsters and rogue traders.

They say the social networking sites can provide “priceless” information which could lead to convictions and that because such sites are still in their infancy they are not covered by legislation which makes authorities request permission from the courts to investigate.

But the council has been warned by the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner that if the undercover officer has any contact other than asking to be a friend in order to see what people are posting it may need permission under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA) act.

Officers are also to be given advice that they would need to apply for legal clearance if they wanted to converse with the person, which in law would make the suspect a “covert human intelligence source” – although they would not know they were incriminating themselves.”




Investigators will be schooled in how to concoct “pre-planned cover stories” if their identity is questioned while they are gathering information.

A report going to the council next week states “there is no doubt that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can provide priceless evidence to services such as the benefit fraud team and Trading Standards.

“For instance, a benefit fraud officer may be able to use them to identify whether an undeclared adult is living at an address where a discount for sole occupancy is being claimed or a Trading Standards officer may be able to obtain names of people involved in the distribution and sale of counterfeit goods.”

TBH I couldnt careless as long as they catch them.

yeah people are silly when they put stuff on facebook, the police can gather so much evidence and profile a person its unreal and youtube aswell with all these little gangsta wannabee's

+1

1984 - another step nearer to Big Brother
Who watches the watchers, I'd like to know.

It's weird how those who are cheating the system cry foul when somebody catches up with them using analysis techniques. Heard a bad one yesterday about someone (and there's probably loads of them out there) who rents off a housing association and sub-lets the property and is now so well off they can move into a very salubrious area and are living off the fat of the land. All power to the fraud squads elbow.

There's a guy who owns two chip shops, asked a friend of mine to sign some benefit forms to say he lived in the property he sub-lets. It didn't get signed but a telephone call was made

(not around here btw)

without being look at as racist there is a lot of foreign people who tend to do this and bring workers over and allow them to live in their properties.

I don't care what benefit fraud teams do, they can sit outside the house all day and night, they can put tracking devices on suspects cars, so long as they catch the scumbags and throw them in prison!

I've always believed that whilst on benefits, people should be made to sign a disclaimer, that should suspicion arise regarding the legibility of their claim, the person accepts that fraud-teams can and will go out of their way, and to a degree, invade the suspects privacy, to find out whether or not THEY MAY BE BREAKING THE LAW. They should also be at the mercy of randomly-chosen spot-checks.

If they are found not to be, there is no problem is there? And for all the privacy and human-rights brigade, the claimants have a choice to claim benefits, just like those who oppose the work-programme, citing reasons like "its wrong to pay them to work for like £1.50 an hour" and "why should I be made to work" etc... well they don't need to take mine and ever other taxpayers money, they can refuse to do so and live by their own means (or even do the unthinkable and get a job lol).

sooner the better,its about time!

totally right matt. there needs jusge reforms into the live for free benefit system and hopefully under the new government this will be addressed

that should of said "huge"

Personally i think its morally corrupt of liverpool council to spy on peoples facebook pages, especially after all the phone hacking scandal which seems to have caused so much controversy.

Ok i dont condone people cheating the benefits system but why should honest people who are down on their luck in this recession be subjected to people snooping into their personal lives . How about people on disability, single mums etc. dont they deserve some privacy?

Also im not sure how spying on a persons facebook page is going to catch rougue traders.

i think its a slippery slope for society if this sort of practice is allowed.

I do find it quite interesting that the people in favour of the snooping on Housing Benefit Fraud claimants do not make their opinions known when it is multinational companies evading tax.

Housing Benefit fraud amounts to about £1.1 billion a year according to Government. We spend a shed load of money to cut this down. In fact, we spend more than we actually save trying to reduce it!

But compare that to HMRC letting Vodafone off a £6 billion tax bill this year for no reason. Compare that to Sir Phillip Green putting Top Shop and other companies in his wife's name to save £300 million in tax on their dividend this year (I'm assuming that £900 million wasn't enough for them to live on this year).

And of course compare that to us bailing the banks out to the tune of £900 billion in cash and asset support. The banks who paid £7 billion out in bonuses (on top of salary) in this financial year.

Sort of makes us complaining about the little people somewhat silly...

That's because it's much easier journalism to blame single mums/absent fathers/immigrants/scousers/slum-lords than it is to point the finger at a multi-billion dollar company who would bury your newspaper in lawyers a foot deep and threaten to move their business elsewhere, costing even more money in job losses.

There are a LOT of offices (Council/HMRC etc) that have departments that cost far more to run than they could ever hope to get back, their job, to all intents, serves no purpose whatsoever and if they didn't turn up to work for six months the country would save money. Their ONLY use is as the stick to beat those that fail to comply, so that the rest of society feels obliged to comply.

Maybe a little off topic but for a number of offences that's all prison is for, to make everyone else comply. Example, a private company allows you to use their product if you want to, you never do as you prefer a different product, but the company says you have to pay for theirs anyway. You refuse to pay for that product as you never use it, the company then takes you to court, the MAGISTRATES, a CRIMINAL court, not a County Court for a Civil debt. You explain that you never use that product but it doesn't matter, even though you use one from another company because you could use that companies if you wanted to you have to pay for it anyway. The magistrates gives you a fine for not paying for the product you do not use, you don't pay it so they put you into prison.



Couldn't happen.....call the product the BBC.

I agree with what you have said, if we only knew the loopholes that have been created to allow billions - dare I say trillions of pounds to disappear from taxation by those who we elect to provide a fair and honest system.
I would compare the country to a pig trough where those with the biggest and longest snouts take most(because they can) and leave a few crumbs for the rest of us to squabble over.
Even in these times of recession someone is making money hand over fist.The media is controlled to stop people thinking about these super rich people and companies.
We're all pigs around the trough but some pigs are more equal than others

I apologise for ranting and being off topic and calling you all pigs - even the big ones

You say that on the basis of a single post on wiki, have you actually any evidence that the likes of myself do not make our opinions known when it is multinational corporations evading tax?

This thread is about those fraudalently claiming benefits (a lot of the people on JSA technically do recieve the benefits fraudualently, since one of the qualifying conditions of the benefit is that they are supposed to be actively looking for work, and many of the scumbags don't[a lot don't even have a CV]), if you want/expect people to be talking about corporate tax-evasion, find/start a thread to discuss it.

Hey, anyone want to start discussing the close of the NotW whilst we are here?

markjw was pointing out the bigger picture and making valid points.

I think calling people on jsa scumbags naive and probrably based on the people that appear on jeremy kyle .

Many people claiming benefits have worked all there lives and now find themselves chucked on the scrapheap through no fault of their own... now they are supposed to feel guilty for claiming a few measly quid to get live on. wtf

As I understand it if you're on JSA you also have to PROVE that you are actively looking for work, so if "a lot..." of these "..scumbags" aren't looking, then how are they PROVING to the relevant Job Centres that they are ?




Nope, but thanks for asking.

There is absolutely nothing new in having to be seen actively seeking work to qualify for unemployment benefit, the dole wanted those assurances even in the 60s and probably before, even then if you didn't meet that criteria or refused to take a job when offered, your dole could have been or was stopped.
What effect did this have on Matts scumbags, very little, they simply moved from one department of benefits to another. To a scumbag, benefit cheat, someone playing the system, it makes no difference to them where they get the money from, so nothing changes for them. Most governments are quite happy when unemployment figures drop, hence all the courses, non of which lead to proper jobs, which in some respects is a good thing, no wonder standards in workmanship has fallen, what was once a job that took 5 years to learn is now somehow achieved in 6 weeks or so, society is better off without those type of skills. Now i repeat myself which we all tend to do on this subject, if there are no jobs how can we get unemployed people off the dole, back to the scumbags, the dole cheats, its been suggest in many quarters, not just on here that we stop giving them money, let them make their own way in the world, fook them so to speak. I repeat myself again, there is no government in a civilised society that are going let people starve and go without so to encourage crime etc. The obvious answer is create enough jobs and then drag the ... to them, make them carry out gainful employment, if failing to do so then lock them up, but you would still have to support their families, nothing can be achieved unless there are jobs in the first place. As for methods used for catching benefit cheats, as far as I'm concerned they can use any method they wish, I've always been a great believer in, if I've nothing to hide i have nothing to worry about.

Quite simple, they write down on a form, three jobs per 2 weeks that they have 'applied' for, and hey presto, the dole is sent to their bank account.

I'm pretty sure you would agree that applying for 3 jobs in 2 weeks is not a true definition of 'actively seeking work', nevermind the fact they don't actually have to prove what they did to look for the job - personally, if I apply for anything in life, from a job to a bank account etc, I keep a copy of the application, if for no other reason than future reference - yet the dole don't expect the people to do this for their benefits, they simply want the claimant to write down what they did to look for work, and that is considered gospel. Looking for work can even be classed as "looking in the jobs section of a newpaper"! 8 hours per day, 5 days a week, leaves plenty of time to search for and apply for jobs, and anyone with the internet should be applying for min. 10 jobs per week (even if they are unskilled work, work the applicant would not normally do - remember the dole is supposed to be a safety net, a last resort, not a way of life until a person gets their dream job).

Now there are people out there who look for plenty of jobs, with and without success, that is something that I am well aware of. But there is also plenty of people who have been long-term claimants, sometimes for years, and have no interest in getting a job, because their life is comfortable enough on benefits (how this works I don't know, maybe its because they have no real bills or the dole pays too much?). There are people on the dole who have never worked a day in their lives, and have no intention of ever doing so. It is 'these' types of people, who are not applying for jobs because they don't want to work, or making mickey-mouse applications when forced to, who are 'technically' claiming benefits illegally.

The job-centre staff, with the cutbacks affecting them over the past few years, and the increased number of claimants, simply don't have the time to check if a person is actually out there seeking work, abiding by the terms and conditions of their entitlement to benefits, so even if they did want to crack-down on it, they would not be able to.

It's a sad world we live in, whereby there is a section of society with no aspiration and no work ethic, but there is little point trying to deny it is going on, when the truth is all around us.

As for there being no jobs Bert, that is certainly true to an extent, though I do take issue with people who say there is no jobs to apply for, there is plenty, competition is high for any jobs that are available, but the jobs do exist. The problem I have with the idea that suddenly there is no jobs, is that its the same line the local scumbags have been using since time-began, and that includes during the years of 'boom' (before the bust) under the previous outgoing Tory administration and throughout the previous Labour administration from about 1995 to 2007. If a job for every person in England was available, sections of society would continue to claim there is no jobs available.

I very much agree with you thoughts on snooping though Bert, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

And I'm going to have to stop writing these essays on my mobile phone, as I crap myself everytime I submit that it wont go through lol

Perhaps we should all learn to choose our words more carefully, by saying no jobs we should say , no were near the amount of jobs to go around to drastically change the unemployment figures or words to that effect. On saying that, when governments have a drive to get the long term unemployed in to work, and we all know who and what type of person they mean, if the evidence is there, why get them back in to work, why not get them in to prison, if they are breaking the law and fraudulently making claims why are we trying to get them jobs, who would want to employ them anyway. If we stretch our imagination and finally achieve getting the scumbags, benefit cheats, system players in to work, are we not going to turn other more willing people in to long term unemployed. It seems to me that governments feel they have achieved something by sending these type of people on to courses that pay little more than they receive doing nothing, hardly a way of encouraging someone to go out to work and try to better themselves by doing these courses. Its an unfortunate fact of life, there will always be unemployment and people cheating on benefits, the question is, who would you rather have in your employment.

Goal posts are a little higher than that these days, its usually 3,3,3 or more. 3 phone calls, 3 letters and 3 hunts PER WEEK, though normally you're let off if you achieve that every fornight.

If everybody on JSA did this, the local businesses would be constantly inundated.

Cheers for clearing that up; I dunno, I just had the odd mate bragging over the years, and indeed someone pointed out a few weeks ago, who attends the Neston JCP, that they just want to see basic proof (ie. written down on a form they give out) of three or four activities every "sign", and how rediculous he thinks the service is (rekons its geared to helping people avoid getting a job).

Essentially, that could be done in a day though, 3 searches (depnding how a search is defined, it could be done in minutes), 3 phonecalls (no real evidence for either, neither is exactly intensive lol), again, could be carried out after a single search, 3 covering letters could be done in a day at say 1.5 hour each; do they actually ask for proof of the letters/applications do you know?

How I understood it, the idea of a Job Seeker was they were supposed to spend 30+ hours per week (iirc, working hours), actively seeking work, and this is why voluntary work etc is a bit of a grey area, because though imho, and other peoples, it is as good as having a job, for work history etc, and improves a persons chances of gaining employment, the stance always seemed to be that it could infringe on the persons ability to find work?

I know of people on the dole, who as I say, don't even have a CV, or have a CV that is years out of date (how do the JCP explain that people without a current, up-to-date CV, are actively seeking work, when 90% of jobs (unsubstantiated figure, guesstimate) require the applicant to include a CV with their covering letter etc...

Of course it can be fiddled, but if your caught out the penalties are high.

They also send you on various courses and voluntary work. At set periods of unemployment you also have more frequent sign-ons and "interrogations".

Most of it seems to be designed to p*ss you off or wear you out to discourage you from claiming JSA than actually helping you get a job. It doesn't sound like you have to achieve much, but it is frustrating and stressful because of the repetition.

The chances of getting a job are well stacked against you from the quantity of jobs available, the number unemployed and the fact you are unemployed. With many, age goes against them or often the ridiculous "essential" specifications some employers ask for. The famous words "you must have extensive experience in ....", yet knowing full well that the difference between training a newbie or re-training an experienced person for their application, is quite similar. Because they have 1342 applicants, a secretarial grade checks the applications and bins all those that haven't got said experience - a ridiculous example being a case when a person that maintained the machine got refused on the grounds he hadn't used it in a food manufacturing environment for the relevant amount of time.

It is soul destroying.

For what it's worth.....I have been told that when it comes to cracking down on how active unemployed people have been in trying to get a job there is great differences in how much their efforts are scrutinised by staff.
Some areas more or less just hand out the dole money, JSA or whatever, but other area's realy crack down on claiments !.