It was three weeks after Christmas when the bombshell letter arrived. Guy Shahar and his wife, Oksana, looked at each other in stunned disbelief.
They had followed the Guardian’s investigation into the carer’s allowance scandal that has left thousands of families with crippling debts and criminal records. Not once did they think they would join them.
“Important,” it read in big bold type. “You have been paid more carer’s allowance than you are entitled to. You now need to pay this money back”.
In some weeks, she was paid just 38p more than the threshold – but for that tiny infraction she is being forced to repay £64.60 each time, the rate of carer’s allowance at the time.
If the punishment for deliberately claiming more in benefits than you’re entitled to is simply to repay the benefits then there’s no incentive to not do it. If you get caught then you’re no worse off than if you’d not broken the law so why not do it?
Having said that, if the punishment for accidentally claiming more than you’re entitled to is so harsh then that is unfair.
I’d imagine that the process for both of the scenarios is the same but it definitely should have some human element in it where intent is taken into account.
The system should protect people from that by having proper checks before the money is paid out.
Unless your rich and break the law then the fine you a small amount relatively speaking and you made more by breaking the law.