Is prison a suitable punishment for someone who commits benefit fraud?
The question is asked following a suspended sentence given to Dawn Ollerhead who claimed more than £38,000 that she was not entitled to. The mother-of-six originally claimed benefit, including income support and housing benefit that she was eligible for in 2001, as she was a single parent. However she later moved in with a man, who was the father of three of her children and who was in full-time work. Therefore, from August 2007 to May 2010, she had been claiming for benefit that she was not entitled to.
The Department for Works and Pensions and her local council will recover the money after Ollerhead pleaded guilty to two charges of dishonesty, failing to give notification of a change in circumstances affecting her entitlement to benefits. She was sentenced to five months in prison, suspended for 18 months along with 12 months supervision and a six-month alcohol treatment requirement.
Is that a suitable sentence for someone who committed a grave offence even though she had been honestly claiming benefits at the outset? Let me know what you think.
It has developed an online package of anti-fraud measures which will aim to tackle, among others, housing tenancy, council tax and blue badge parking fraud and will include a fraud checklist to determine whether the individual council is doing all it can by way of a fraud response, an online fraud resilience check, a counter-fraud and corruption e-learning training course and an online “fraud zone” and discussion forum.
It is in response to the NFA’s recent report which estimated that fraud costs the economy about £73bn a year of which £2.2bn affected local government. Will the measures make a real difference and is a standardised national response to fraud the best way to tackle the problem or should each council produce their own measures to react to their own individual situation? Let me know what you think.
The dangers of fraud by online gambling have been highlighted by the recent case of a man who made almost £80,000 this way by using fraudulent passports, identity cards and false utility bills to create various accounts.
Andrei Osipau was sentenced to three years imprisonment for what is termed a “Bonus Abuse”, which basically steals other people’s identities to open online betting accounts. His offences were first identified when an online betting company received two passports with different names but the same photograph; this was reported to the Gambling Commission who passed it onto the Gaming Unit.
Osipau pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud, eight of possession of articles for use in fraud and one count of transferring criminal property. Will the sentence deter others from trying this type of identity fraud? We will see.
UK Fraud, the country s leading fraud consultancy, has made some predictions regarding fraud in the year ahead. Among them, it says that the National Fraud Authority will come under political pressure to formulate a fraud strategy which will make a significant difference when tackling the problem.
It also says that identity theft will continue to grow and will become a significant problem during 2012, while some government departments may also witness a rise in fraud which will lead to a wider look at the problem and how it can be tackled both within the UK and on a global level.
It says that it expects overall fraud to increase, both in the UK and throughout Europe, with many areas such as insurance, retail and local authorities likely to be affected. UK Fraud s predictions may be quite general, necessarily so, though they have the effect of, at least, giving the issue a public airing and could influence some organisations to take preventative action.
We will see if these and other predictions come to fruition in 2012.
With many of us now using our mobile phones for online shopping, it appears that far more fear fraud in this way rather than when they use a home computer.
Figures from Affinion International, which provides protection and assistance products to banks, show that 60% of those questioned felt at increased risk when using their mobile to shop compared to only 13% who felt the same when using a home computer or laptop.
The fears come despite predictions that online shopping will increasingly take place on mobile devices rather than a fixed PC, with revenue from smartphones expected to double by 2013.
Affinion International says that its research also shows that only one in ten is currently satisfied with their current levels of security and therefore more has to be done to address these concerns. It adds that traditional protection concentrates around the physical threats such as losing a mobile or a card, but these don t take into account how we transact and share personal data, so greater protection needs to come onto the market to reflect these concerns. What would these greater protections be? And, if you are concerned about using a smartphone to buy online, what safeguards would you like to see? Let us know what you think.
The government is set to target fake lone parents who claim single person s benefits while living with a husband or wife. Is it a serious problem as is claimed?
The government says that approximately 100m is currently being lost in overpaid benefits and there have been several recent cases of married women receiving single parent benefits amounting to 1m.
The government says that the Welfare Reform Bill, which is currently going through parliament, will address the issue and adds that, though some of the claims may be fraudulent from the outset, there are others where their circumstances change but they neglect to inform the relevant authorities.
It says that Universal Credit will simplify the benefits system, making it less open to abuse, thus meaning that more money will be going to those who need it most. Do you think the new reforms will achieve that aim? We d appreciate your comments.
Craig Whyte, the chairman of debt-ridden Rangers football club, has been plunged into further turmoil over revelations from a jailed embezzler, that he helped Whyte go from company to company leaving a trial of debt behind.
Kevin Sykes served an eight-year prison sentence for a 3m pension fund fraud, and claims that he founded companies for Craig Whyte to offload liabilities into. He worked as a secretary in companies where Whyte had been a director and he says that at least 24 companies were wound up while having Whyte in charge.
One of them, the demise of Vital UK, saw Whyte being given a seven-year ban from being a company director, but Sykes says that as that company was going bust, all of its assets were sold to another company. Registrar Simmonds subsequently ruled that the assets of the company (Vital UK) were put out of reach of creditors .
Lawyers acting for Craig Whyte say that their client had never been a close business associate of Sykes, something the latter finds surprising to say the least. Certainly the future of the famous football club may be a long way from being resolved and it appears that the same could be said for its current chairman.
A report from Bolton tells of a conman who stole from his neighbours, yet only had to repay back £1 to the courts.
Bolton Crown Court heard that Keith Fryer stole almost £40,000 from the management company of The Parklands, a gated apartment complex where he lived. He used the money to pay off personal debts which had accumulated from two businesses which he ran.
He was jailed for three years in September and has also, in the past, spent time in prison in the United States for his part in an $18m “Ponzi” investment scheme. Though the benefit figure of his crime in the UK was £42,925 he will only have to pay back £1 though the Finance Investigator in his case, Tony Wood, says that if he comes into any more money on his release from prison, it can be seized by the courts.
Fryer denied two counts of obtaining money transfers by deception and three charges of fraud, but the jury found him guilty.