I got a shock today when I went online to check my bank account.

I was expecting to be about £40 overdrawn… Then I saw my bank statement :shocked: Close to £400 overdrawn
Turns out, my sickness benefit hasn’t been paid for the past month, and with not having been anywhere, I hadn’t realised.

Needless to say, I rang the benefits office as soon as possible to find out what was going on, why I hadn’t got any money and when I was going to be getting some.

It’s been so long since I’ve actually had to contact the place; I’d forgotten what it was like.

It’s no wonder there is such a problem with benefit fraud… Whilst it’s partly down to greed, I’d hazard a guess that in many cases it’s because the benefits agency just doesn’t care!

Take me for example…

I’m 28, but I still live with my parents (:-(() Yet because I am related to them, they are expected to support me, and I cannot get any extra money to put towards the household bills, rent etc. That in its self is a bad thing… After all, once you’re over 16, parents no longer have any legal responsibility to maintain you, and many just can’t afford to continue looking after their children, since the child benefit stops when they are 16, but they can’t claim anything until they are 18.

So that’s my first gripe at the system… Well… Actually it’s two. Firstly the fact that I am expected to rely on someone else to support me (a fact that I hate at the best of times, but I despise being beholden to my parents!) and secondly the number of gaps and loopholes in the system, which causes so many people to be unable to get any kind of help because they don’t exactly fit into a category. (Example, 16-18-year-olds aren’t the responsibility of their parents anymore, but can’t get any benefits in their own right should their parents throw them out onto the street.)

My third gripe at the system is their lack of concern.

When I rang today to explain that I had no money, was seriously overdrawn at the bank and needed money… They didn’t care.

Their response? Well your sick note didn’t arrive until after your last one ran out so we had to suspend payment. It was processed on Friday so you should receive it by the end of the week. But we did back date it and pay you the arrears…

:rollseyes: Oh goodie, it’s all my fault and I’ll get it eventually then… And how kind of you to pay the arrears… That would be the money that I was entitled to anyway and was just put on hold while you waited for the sick note that was hand delivered over 2 weeks ago then would it? :no:

It’s like trying to deal with spoilt children, the number of people in the benefits department who’s life just isn’t complete unless they can lord it over everyone, rub their noses in their circumstances, make them feel small, worthless and greatly indebted to them for deigning to speak with them…

They feed of the people who have to force themselves to swallow their pride to go to places like that to ask for help, and they manipulate the rest into loosing their tempers and threatening them so they can legitimately cancel their claim and have security remove them from the building…

And on top of that, they take their sweet time with everything, after all you can’t tell me that it takes over 2 weeks to stamp a sick note and click a button on the computer to show it has been received and reactivate a suspended payment… But in the benefits agency (like many other government departments) it does.

They always hate it when I have to go in to see somebody about a problem, because I don’t’ fall into either of the categories they can control. I have no pride, so they can’t use that, and I keep far too tight a grip on my temper to lose it over little maggots like them… So They have to deal with me, if they try to fob me off, I pull them about it, and if they don’t keep a civil tongue in their heads I wave the customer charter at their shrivelled little faces and insist on speaking to their manager… Some days that’s actually the best bit about having to trail around in the benefits system… But… You have to get your pleasures somehow! :-p

But it does explain why there is so much fraud going on… Like I said, I’m still stuck living with my parents, I can’t afford to pay any rent, can’t afford to pay any bills, except my own, I have no debt that has to be paid each month, yet I only just exist. I can’t understand how people manage that have bills, homes and families to support on the pittance that the government supplies.

Yet every time I have had to go to the benefits agency, you see the young kids with all their gold jewellery, several boyfriends and dozens of children running around, and somehow they manage to get everything they could possibly want, all at the tax payers expense, and you know most of them have probably never worked a day in their lives (and most don’t ever plan to!). Yet the people who do try, the ones who have worked and just fallen on bad times, and the ones whose situation, or health won’t let them fend for themselves… They get treated like dirt, have to fight for every penny they are given, and still lose more often than they win… Where is the justice for them?

How can somebody sit in the waiting room and be able to tell who is milking the system for every penny and who is struggling to survive, yet the staff, who see these people every day seem totally oblivious to those details, ride the people who should get the help and just hand over the cash to those who should be given a swift kick and told to do something useful… Like get a job! I notice you see many of the struggling people in and out of the job centres, whilst the milkers go out, sit and chat to their friends, go shopping, show off their latest buys and in some cases don’t even know where the job centre is!

And they say the only problem is the fraud?

Mind you, I guess I have to add, whilst I have no shame, I hate having to rely on the benefits system for income, and my parents to support me. I, like many people trapped in the system, want to try and find that perfect situation or set of circumstances where we can do more than exist… Where we can get our own income, stand on our own two feet and make our own way in the world… Of course the joy of being able to go into that place for the last time, show them several fingers, give them several choice words and tell them exactly what they can do with their forms, their files, their ticket waiting system, and just where they can stick their review panel…! Well that would just be the icing on the cake