DWP to take money directly from bank accounts in benefit fraud crackdown
DWP will reform ‘absurd outdated’ measures to prevent fraud which cost taxpayers a record £7.3bn last year
The biggest cause of food bank referral is these people not being able to hand out free money on time. Now we’re suggesting that they’ll know whose account to take money out of? And the correct amount?
Err, yes.
And that’s before we get to the civil liberties connotations here. The state has the right to loot your bank account whenever? Rilly? Spud’ll be getting a hard on for this…..
“The state has the right to loot your bank account whenever?”
It worked for Turdeau………
Yes. I really don’t like this.
Perhaps it’s because I was a bureaucrat, and I know what it’s like.
I can’t imagine what could possibly go wrong [goes off to open a bank account whose sole purpose will be to receive his state pension, when he gets it]!
@ Clovis – You dear, sweet, innocent boy! I’m sure the TTK gang will have no compunction to help themselves and leave you with a debit balance. What’s that you say? No, the TTK gang will legislate to permit banks being left with unsecured overdrafts but as a sop to said banks there will be fast track procedures enabling them to move against these “borrowers” and seize their assets or have them jailed in the Marshalsea like in the good old days.
Thinking benefit fraudsters would leave the money sitting in the account DWP paid it into seems a rather dubious assumption
BinC
They’re not going after the criminal gangs, that might lead to accusations of racism or the like, they’re going after the confused, befuddled and careless who find everyday life a struggle. See also grooming gangs
People have been sitting around discussing ways of doing this sort of thing in every western country for some years now. They have plenty more in the pipeline. Or that’s my theory, anyway.
“The state has the right to loot your bank account whenever?”
The State has any right it chooses to award itself.
@Dearieme. “Le loi est moi” See all absolute monarchies where the population are vassals to serve the king.
Seems we’ve moved backwards.
By the way that’s backwards to the distopia imagined in the 1970s in the comic 2000AD.
“The state has the right to loot your bank account whenever?”
It works in Hong Kong, too.
I’m sure the 69,542,213 bureaucrats we now have in this country will resist the temptation to click on random bank accounts to see how much they can get. For they are all honourable men and women…
The sheer incompetence of the DWP is likely to lead to more problems than their deliberate looting. I foresee John Smith of 22 Station Road Bolton having the overpayment to John Smith of 22 Station Road Bootle seized from his bank account leaving him overdrawn and subject to bank charges and dozens of accounts which are only one digit different from the fraudster’s account being raided in error {only dozens because the banks have put in checks to prevent “fat finger” errors so it’s only the ones that look similar that will suffer].
You think “John Smith” is the problem. How do you tell the difference between all those blokes called Mohammed?
@Meissen Bison
‘No, no’ he cried, ‘they would never be that unscrupulous’.
Tim, the hyperlink goes to:
Labour gender therapy plans ‘risk criminalising parents who don’t want children to transition’
Which, well, duh. That has always been the goal here, it’s why the Tories were planning to bring in the same laws.
The british government wants us dead and broken, our kids raped and brainwashed, and they think it’s funny.
’ …the distopia imagined in the 1970s in the comic 2000AD’
I can’t see Judge Dredd ever being swayed by ‘cultural isshoos’ into failing to deal appropriately with an offender, Andrew Again…
If you invite government to think about packaging benefits as negative income tax, should you really be surprised by the risk of money disappearing into the maw of the state in the guise of negative benefits? Thank you Uncle Milt!
“The state has the right to loot your bank account whenever?”
It’s the Viking raider theory of taxation. Politicians fantasize about it everywhere.
I suspect that the whole department, from the top down, has yet to come into the 20th century, let alone the 21st. They openly admit that it takes 10 working days to respond to an email enquiry and that bank transfers take 5 working days.
Recently I had cause to write to the International Pensions Centre bit of the DWP. After 6 weeks from the proof of delivery date with no response I decided to start at the top with an email (plus a copy of my original letter) to the Permanent Secretary. 10 days and no reply so I sent a chaser politely asking for the courtesy of a response and adding my next step was to the PM. 5 days later an unsigned I have looked through our records and cannot locate your original correspondence. Could you please send through again and I will ensure it is directed to the appropriate Department, My answer produced a flurry of activity and yes, it took 5 working days for the money they owed me to arrive in my UK bank.