Topic: Is it true?

[Paulines7]

Having worked in Benefits fraud and in appeals trubinuals I have to say that there are a lot of people from abroad abusing our welfare system.

There are also many, many more people from abroad who are working hard for this country and have never claimed anything.  They make up the backbone of our country especially in the NHS.

Ive sat in a tribunal where a foreigner has proudly stated he has done his bit for our country by producing 9 children, all of which he was claiming benefit for. He was upset when the chairman told him he'd have done us a better favour having a vasectomy.

There are people born in this country who also have a lot of children.  The chairman was totally out of order saying that and should have been sacked!

Ive kicked peoples doors in who were claiming in multiple identitities to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

This happens whether they were born and bred in this country or not.  There will always be people defrauding the system.

Immigrants do get far more than our people, they get houses over our own people, then whinge they arent big enough, they get loads of benefits all of which they can claim having been able to have forms translated for them by an interpreter paid for by our government, something I dont think nmany other countries would go to the expnse of doing. We pander to people from abroad like no other country does.

I think you have been reading the Daily Mail as gospel.

I find your posting very racist.   >:(

[brownowl23]

I dont actually read any papers as I know how full of junk they are.

I have however worked for many years in the benfits agency and have seen with my own eyes how much people get.

Yes there are people in this country who have lots of children, my own aunt has 10 children but has never ever claimed a penny in benefit for them. It galled me and the chairman that this guy thought he'd done the country a favour producing mouths to feed. I know that there re english people who have done this and I dont agree with that anymore because they are white. If you dont work for the money to feed them or cant afford to feed that many then dont have them.

Yes there are many immigrants that work hard, but there are also very very many who dont who think we owe them a good standard of living in alot of cases far better than some of our own hardworking people manage to acheive.

Im not racist I just dont believe that immigrants should be given lots of benefits, what ever country they chose to live in, , if they have been given shelter from whatever they have been unfortunate to be running away from the least they can do is be grateful for what they get and get working as quickly as possible and pay thier own way. I also dont believe british ex pats should be able to claim from countries abroad

My own husband was made redundant earlier this year, filled in all the forms and when we got our money £87.00 per week , no mortgage payments, nothing else and it took 4 weeks for this to come through.  we got nothing for our twin toddlers, and were told we should have known to have claimed tax credit and it now wouldnt be back dated. As far as we were concerned we filled in the forms we were told to. We also got penalised on our  benefit for the fact we had some savings, and i'd love to know where I can get a £1 interest per week on a £1000, which is what the dole dock you for your savings.  Fortunately it only took 4 weeks for my husband to get a job, because yes there are jobs out there if you actually want to work!!
I''d be betting if we werent english then we would have had better explanation of what we could claim. Cynical I may be, but sadly this is the truth of the times we live in.

Ive just discovered my own parents arent getting the right amount of pension, they should be getting pension credit. Of course my parents accept what they are given and it took me a year to get through thier pride and get to the bottom of what they were getting. They are just greateful they have something to live on and dont question whether its right.
My mother has heart problems and its taken an age to get treatment for her because she always tells the doctor she is fine, even though she looks grey and like death warmed up and walks at snails pace. It was only last week when my sister insisted on going to the doctor with her that we discocvered that her heart problems were very serious and she had a DVT which would have killed her by Xmas. She is house bound and cant walk more than 100 yds, yet she gets no attendance allowance and no help, something I am trying to sort out right now.

Does it get my goat when people come to this country and expect to be spoon fed, too flippin right it does. Why do they come here because our welfare system is so easy.
Does it get my goat when english people would rather sit on their bums and claim benefits because they would be worse off working because they have created so many children, yet it does.
Does it get my goat when youngsters cant be bothered to go to work because its too much like hard work yes it does.

I was brought up to work hard and earn for what I wanted. I was brought up that if you cant afford to buy it with cash dont buy it.

As for treatment on the NHS, when I needed treatement I had to go abroad to get it, as it wasnt available on the NHS as having a family for me despite suffering from a condition which meant I couldnt have kids, was classed as a lifestyle choice. Treatment I needed would have cost £10,000 over here privately it cost a quarter of that abroad and the treatment was far and above the standard available here.

Am I proud to be British hell no.  If that makes me racist then its a sad world.

[ACE]

I don't really give a monkeys f@rt what other people are getting as long as I get mine. I get indignant in an argument, but that's come to be  expected from a lot of us, I expect we are fed propaganda from dubious scources, just to get our backs up.

my family and I were educated, had health care, family allowance, free milk and orange juice when I was a nipper, subsidised morgage at one time, get all the over 60 freebies, there was a fallback if I wanted it on social (lucky me, never needed to yet). So can't really complain. There are immigrants down this way working in horticulture, but they are keeping the veggy prices down in the shops with  p!ss poor wages. I only see coloured faces in the hospital (not a problem) because they don't seem to set up home down here.

Some of you must live in high immigrant areas and suppose they are getting it made easy for them. But you must have all had it easy at one time, now it has been taken away, it is easy to blame the immigrant. It keeps you off the bankers back.

[antipodes]

Remember that the law states that an asylum seeker is NOT ALLOWED to work. so they have no choice by to live off benefits while waiting for their case to be decided. I am surprised no one mentioned this earlier.
I also just want to say that yes there will always be people ripping off the system. But despite what some papers say I think it's a pretty miserable existence being an asylum seeker or illegal immigrant, always looking over your shoulder and not knowing where your next meal is coming from. I am not sure it's a way of life many of us would choose if we had an alternative.  How many of us would try their luck in a boat from Iraq, Iran or Burma, to try and cross the Indian Ocean to get to Australia, only to realise that you'll be sent back, if you don't sink.
Or risk your life crushed in a container to be smuggled into Europe from Afghanistan, or wherever...

I am a foreigner in my new country, yes I have claimed benefits and still do, family allowance etc. And I work, but even if I wasn't I would still be contributing to the economy. Don't forget that even people who are on benefits or even illegals still pay VAT and indirect taxes ... so something still goes back into the coffers...

[Grandma]

quote
(illegal immigrants, by the very nature of their illegality, can't claim a penny, btw)

But they can, it seems, drive a car whilst banned; kill a British child  - and be given permission to stay in this country.

[Bill Door]

This is coming on as a good debate.

If we take this idea on further then some people (immigrant or European) have work that pays so low that they automatically are eligible for working tax credits family tax credits etc.  So who actually benefits from this.  Well the individuals do, but only just as they work hard and scrape by.  The employers do because they can get work done on the cheap and can undercut the competition.

The general population benefit because they can buy goods at a reduced price,  we all want a bargain don't we.  Whether it is a cheap spade from Wilkinson's or something bought at the local market or car boot sale.

But then it seems as if every bargain that looks to good to be true is too good to be true.  It is a race to see whether the money saved will allow us the pay the tax later.  Now it seems we are moving our "costs" over the the generations that follow.  Makes me think that in effect we have all been living in one huge Ponzi scheme.  The money is running out and we may find out the none of the emperors have any clothes on at all.

One other thought is that with all this debt around the world where is all the moiney coming from to lend and cover the debts?


Bill

[grawrc]

Short answer: don't know, but apparently huge areas of USA business are now owned by China!

[carbonel11]

quote
(illegal immigrants, by the very nature of their illegality, can't claim a penny, btw)

But they can, it seems, drive a car whilst banned; kill a British child  - and be given permission to stay in this country.

I don't think it really matters that the child was British or not, a child is a child. Any child's death is awful.

[valmarg]

Having worked in Benefits fraud and in appeals trubinuals I have to say that there are alot of people from abroad abusing our welfare system.

Stap me, that comes as one hell of a big surprise, I don't think.

valmarg

[shirlton]

I don't mind who gets what as long as they have worked for it to the best of their ability. Its the lazy sods that don't want to work but get every benefit that is available to them that pee me off.

[ACE]

quote


But they can, it seems, drive a car whilst banned; kill a British child  - and be given permission to stay in this country.

This is where it all falls down ???

[gp.girl]

You wonder how many are going to be 'advised' to have children to guarentee staying. In fact he probably was........

Personally I don't get it deporting him won't preventing having a family life he'll just have to do it somewhere else. Which is fine by me.

[grannyjanny]

I was chatting to someone recently who has a wife with severe health problems & was refused DLA mobility. They appealed & a doctor was sent out to examine her. He didn't need to as he could see what her problems were. He had been to someone else in the area who was living in terrible conditions who lived next to assylum seekers who had had the house renovated by the council & refunished etc. They did a runner & took whatever they could with them.

[Paulines7]

I know a white British man, born and bred in the UK who murdered many girls in the Ipswich area. 

I have read about other white British men doing awful things, trashing houses, being armed and robbing banks, not paying any maintenance for their children, defrauding the Government by not paying income tax, claiming benefits whilst working....need I go on? 

My point?  People always pick on foreigners, black people, the Irish, Asians, gays and anyone else that doesn't fit into their own little white pigeon holes. 

What a lot of racists you are on here.   ::)

[shirlton]

I really don't think that last remark was called for.
There may be some folks on here that are prejudiced but I would suggest that they are in the minority
I think that we are all aware of the fact that there is good and bad in all
nationalities.

[artichoke]

It is actually rather difficult to get into the UK. My new daughter-in-law from the far east, although they married, found it almost impossible to join my son in UK under current rules. It took us nearly 2 years to complete the paperwork; she got permission to join us here for 27 months only. During that time she is forbidden any form of benefits.

One reason for the difficulty is that my son is partially disabled and supports himself by part-time self-employment plus tax credits and housing benefit. She is allowed to share this very low income, and she is allowed to work if she can find a job.

This time next year she has to apply for permission to stay with us permanently. The conditions under which she can stay will be even more stringent because if she is permitted to stay, she will then be allowed to access benefits. I am dreading next Christmas for this reason.

My sister works with immigrants in an advice centre, in many cases very young ones from wartorn areas, and with surprisingly complete paperwork considering the chaos their countries are in. The ones with no papers or incomplete ones cannot be helped by this centre - it is only the best-equipped who can be taken on. She is constantly heartbroken at the stringency of the regulations which search for loopholes in their papers, and send them back.

I am sure there are cases of immigrants who manage to play the system and cheat and lie to obtain benefits - but I know from experience that many honest and often vulnerable people somehow fail to convince the Entry Clearance Officers, through oversights, confusion, misunderstanding, lack of effective legal representation in tribunals, time limits they did not know about - and disappear back into dreadful conditions.

I follow an on line advice site for people seeking spouse visas of the sort we have achieved (temporarily) and it makes terrible reading.

[landimad]

After all this debating I think that I deserve a nice cup of tea and a long sleep.

[electric landlady]

I've worked in housing for 15 years now, first for local government and now for a charity, and have to put a couple of things straight here:

Immigrants do get far more than our people, they get houses over our own people, then whinge they arent big enough,

No one from abroad is given a higher preference for housing than a UK citizen, just because they are from abroad. In fact the vast majority of people from abroad are excluded from applying for social housing of any kind. People from abroad who do qualify to apply are given preference mostly on exactly the same grounds as people from this country, although if they are applying as homeless they are treated less favourably. This does mean that if their circumstances are bad enough, they will get more preference than a UK citizen whose circumstances are less bad, but this is not because they are "foreign", it's because their living conditions are horrendous. The "foreigners get preference for housing" thing is a myth that was extensively put about by the BNP during their election campaign and is unfortunately believed by many people.

they get loads of benefits all of which they can claim having been able to have forms translated for them by an interpreter paid for by our government, something I dont think nmany other countries would go to the expnse of doing.

Again, most people from abroad don't qualify for any benefits. Those who do, qualify on exactly the same basis as a UK claimant. Most claims these days are made over the phone; where claim forms still exist they are all in English (if they weren't, the claims assessors wouldn't be able to understand them to assess the claims) - occasionally applicants with no English can get some help filling them in from organisations like CABx. It's possible that the DWP might sometimes give some help over the phone to help applicants understand the claim forms, but I've never actually heard of this happening.

Hope this does not add fuel to any fires - but too often I've heard opinions put across as fact which are, well, just not.

Merry Xmas! xx :)

[Tee Gee]

Thanks for those replies now I am in the picture.

Didn't expect the item to be discussed so fervently.

I did have a gut feeling it was a bit far fetched, but I always think in terms of;

there is no smoke without fire.

so I guess such propaganda will smoulder on for quite some time yet!

Right!! what are we going to discuss next!  ??? ::) 8)

[valmarg]

they get loads of benefits all of which they can claim having been able to have forms translated for them by an interpreter paid for by our government, something I dont think nmany other countries would go to the expnse of doing.

Why should we tax payers pay for interpreters.  If you were in France or Spain (for example) and needed hospital treatment you would be expected to bring along your own interpreter.  The local government/NHS provides this service for free.  WHY?  It costs the country millions of pounds a year, and should not be FREE.

valmarg