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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Other benefit issues  →  Thread

Fraud and error caught lying in email. 

Faceache
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Money Matters, South Lanarkshire Council

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Total Posts: 28

Joined: 5 February 2014

DLA appeal as a result of award stopping after fraud and error conducted some investigations. Submission documents for the appeal included an internal email from fraud and error to the decision maker stating that he made contact with (said person) and (said person) confirmed that claimant is known to him. This, along with some other stuff formed evidence to stop the award and overpayment was issued.

Whilst waiting on appeal date, client received court documents which included a signed statement from the (said person) stating he was unable to identify the claimant.

It appears the fraud and error had lied in the email to the decision maker and client has both the email and signed statement as proof of this.

What action could the client take about this? Incidentally appeal was successful and court proceedings dropped.

Catblack
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Benefits specialist - South Somerset District Council

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Sounds like there is a case for maladministration and possibly financial redress. Has a complaint been submitted?

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/422425/financial-redress-maladministration-apr-15.pdf

 

 

Faceache
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Money Matters, South Lanarkshire Council

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Looking at options at this stage and client speaking to solicitor but the info provided will be very helpful. Thanks catblack.  I suspect the Glasgow fraud and error service will ignore any complaints but the ICE sounds hopeful so on their head be it. Interesting to see how they could explain this one and I guess our Mr lead fraud officer, who claims to know nothing about benefits, didn’t expect the decision maker to include the internal email in the submission.

UC awaits him.

Dan_Manville
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Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council

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Is this actually evidence of a lie?

I deal with a lot of people on a second tier basis; I help nurses or social workers to solve problems. Thus I know of a lot of individuals that I have never met and would not be able to identify.

Where a person is know to an officer it doesn’t necessarily mean they could identify them; for instance if a referral has been made and an individual officer is dealing with it but hasn’t had opportunity to interview them.

Faceache
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Money Matters, South Lanarkshire Council

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I understand what you’re saying but under these circumstances it’s a blatant lie.