Benefit fraud website nets just 24 cheats

...after 2,587 investigations in three years... which is quite frankly rubbish...

By Andy McCue, 7 October 2003 16:54

NEWS A high-profile government website allowing people to inform on suspected benefit fraudsters has led to just 24 prosecutions in three years. The Targeting Benefit Fraud website was launched in May 2000 as part of wider government plans to crack down on the UK's £2bn annual loss from stolen benefits. The site allows people to fill in a 'report a cheat' form that is followed up by investigators at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). But the latest figures seen by silicon.com reveal that 85 per cent of 'report a cheat' forms are not deemed worthy of further investigation, while just 24 people have been successfully prosecuted as a result of information provided through the website. The site had 123,575 hits in 2002/03 compared with almost 1.5 million in its first year and while the number of cheat forms submitted has risen to 8,309 for this year, just 1,201 of these were investigated. A spokeswoman for the DWP said the Targeting Fraud website is primarily an information resource on the aims of the wider campaign to tackle the problem. She said in a statement: "We are making excellent progress in the fight against benefit fraud. By March 2002 we had successfully reduced fraud and error in Income Support and Jobseeker’s Allowance by 24 per cent, against a target of 33 per cent by 2004 and 50 per cent by 2006."

Comments

There are 6 comments. Join the discussion

  1. 1. anonymous

    hi
    well i wanted to know if the website www.coastalcreditunion.com ia a real bank site or a fraud one?
    its login is 'access' and passwrd is'control'.

  2. 2. anonymous too

    If you tell me your Story with this "Coastalcreditunion.com" and I can compare with mine maybe we can find if is a fraud web site or worst a money laundering web site. That is what I think about it...Did you send them money???

  3. 3. anonymous

    how to check/confirmed if the coastal credit union is a fraud bank.
    since maybe i have the same story with another.

  4. 4. Anonymous too

    Well It supposed that I transfer an amount there from a Spain bank. And it's Supposed that I'm Helping some body and a friend of him tell that Coastalcreditunion.com is a good one because allow offshore movements to other banks. But right know that account it's supposed held for a some FMU invoice charge tht have to be paid to release the account. And I'm thinking that is BSht all this. A Suggestion to Anonymous look for the whois of the domain name of the web page.

  5. 5. Anonymous too

    Really I'm thinking that is a fraud because when you see the Whois of the other banks domain names appear information of physical address, phone number that match with its location. And the info of this coastal is from Idaho, USA? Please it's supposed to be a bank on England or Canada. And did not appear the full name at the contact info, or register info or billing or administrative info. Look what I mean at allwhois.com and tell me if same happend to you...as me appear that we are fraud victims...

  6. 6. anonymous

    i cant even open their website now. how can i access my account.

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