Tag Archives: scam

The news in tweets: Monday, July 10, 2023

Number of people waiting long periods for PIP claim result has plummeted

The number waiting longer than six months has dropped from more than 20,000 to just 300 within 12 months, and the DWP says it has halved the time it takes in acting on a claim.

But how many claims are the DWP processing now, in comparison to 12 months ago? What is the figure as a proportion of all claims received? And – more to the point – how many are successful?

Ofgem asks energy suppliers to publish all their tariffs, so customers know what deals are worthwhile

Scam adverts: the government has STILL enacted no laws to protect you against them

Are doctors in Scotland well-advised to suspend strikes after pay offer of 17.5% over two years?

It may seem a lot but doctors in Scotland have only suspended their strike action for a pay deal of 8.75 per cent per year – that’s still less than the current rate of inflation and therefore a pay cut.

But it is more than junior doctors have been offered by Health Secretary Steve Barclay – whose own pay packet has not been reduced by inflation.

Meanwhile, teachers are being told their own job is a “vocation” – meaning it is especially worthy of dedication – and they should be happy with £27,000 a year, by Heather Wheeler. Take a look at this point:

There is no degree in being a member of Parliament, and most of the degrees in politics don’t seem to be worth the paper they’re written on (look at the havoc wreaked on the nation by graduates of Oxford’s Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) course). It is a career for which there is no qualification and cannot be described as a vocation – but Heather Wheeler draws down a salary of £82,000 a year, plus expenses.

And it is important to remember that teachers aren’t just striking to get better pay for themselves. Government spending on education suffered its longest-ever decline under the Tory governments between 2011 and 2019, and teachers are striking to ensure that education as a whole is properly funded:

And the Tory arguments that pay increases would raise the rate of inflation have already been proved false.

So there is no good reason for refusing to pay doctors, teachers and other striking workers what they are due – which would bring them to parity – in real terms – with their pay in 2010. And there’s no good reason for refusing to properly fund education and the NHS either; taxation is currently at its highest in something like 70 or 80 years, which should mean public money is available for such projects. What have the Tories done with it?

All of the above supports the following short clip, making an important point that should be remembered by everyone who complains about strikes:

Did Jeremy Corbyn grab Israel Advocacy member – as he claims – or was the MP the one who was assaulted?

Here’s video footage of what happened. The context note beneath it clarifies exactly what really did happen. Reggie D Hunter’s comment is pertinent too:

These aggressively Zionist, pro-Israel goons think they can do whatever they like and then lie about it when we can see what’s really happening via their own recordings.

Remember that, next time one of them makes a wild accusation.

Most train ticket offices in England to be shut within three years, no matter how many people it disadvantages

That’s the theory. Here’s the practical upshot:

Does anybody remember a piece of law called the Disability Discrimination Act? Did it not make provision for a situation like this?

If not, is it time that Act was amended?

Jeremy Hunt to appear on Martin Lewis ITV show about mortgages – and you can help grill him

Tin-eared airport bosses want to increase pollution there by 60% amid public fury over environmental harm

Minister for disabled people refuses to discuss his disability action plan with them

Perhaps Tom Pursglove doesn’t want disabled people to object to the plan to close railway ticket offices?

Perhaps there are a multitude of other omissions in his plan that he doesn’t want to allow under the spotlight until it has been rubber-stamped?

Whatever the excuse, this is unacceptable behaviour from any government. Nobody’s life should be changed by the government if they haven’t had a chance to participate in the process.

“Nothing about us without us,” remember?


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Here’s the reason nobody is stopping online scammers

This is revealing from Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis – who came out with a naughty word in a Parliamentary committee while discussing online scammers.

It seems the government won’t legislate to stop online scammers because it’s too complicated – but the firms running the big internet platforms can’t be bothered unless it’s worth their while; the cost of being sued for failing to do it is less than the profit from the advertising revenue they get from the crooks.

See for yourself:

And why not employ people to stop the scammers, rather than rely on a tech solution? The tech companies are the biggest and most profitable, so they can afford to do it.

They just need an incentive. If they won’t take the carrot, maybe it’s time for the stick.

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GCSE results: Were exams traditionally DOWNgraded for non-private/grammar school pupils?

Exams: they didn’t happen this year or in 2020, and under teacher assessments, grades shot up. And after last year’s results, assessments by independent/grammar school teachers shot up further than those by teachers in state schools. Are millions of pupils, past and present, the victims of a national downgrading scam?

This Site received a very interesting – and worrying – comment on this year’s A-level results which I want to share with you.

It said:

“Surely, the BIG story is that this year probably reveals that lots more pupils should have done well in previous years, as well as in this year, but the exam system deliberately DOWNGRADED pupils so that numbers and quotas for college places etc would not be exceeded.

“In reality, before now, many pupils would have done well enough for a University place but, given a lack of enough places, the exam results were “doctored by algorithm” so that, by some mysterious process, the number of suitable pupils was almost exactly the number of college places available!

“The remnant 11-plus system in Kent or Glos works in the same way, producing enough pupils to fill the Grammar school places available, but then “failing” many others who, in other years, would have “passed” with exactly the same exam results.

“But this year, the teachers just made honest assessments of pupil progress and achievements and did not consider things like deliberately downgrading some results so that college places would not be under pressure.

“The big losers are , surely, the thousands of pupils in previous years who did just as well as this year’s, but were then downgraded to mean that they no longer hoped to go on to University.

“Public school kids, like Clarkson, didn’t have to worry about all this as they were set up for life anyway.

“Once again, it would have been the working-class pupils, who flogged their guts out to do well, expected some good results, but were then dismayed to find that ,somehow, they hadn’t done well enough.

“And, in the way this system always works, the victims end up blaming themselves and wish they could have worked harder or were, “more intelligent” etc.”

Looking at this year’s GCSE results in comparison with last year’s, that comment seems very close to the mark – although This Writer doesn’t think it’s about denying college places to people from state schools.

It’s about lying that state school pupils don’t deserve college places and independent/grammar school pupils do.

Look at the way top grades – over all candidates – have shot up by almost half since teacher evaluation was used instead of examinations – from 22 per cent of the total in 2019 to 30 per cent in 2021.

To me, that doesn’t indicate a sudden improvement in pupil performance and it certainly doesn’t indicate that exam conditions have a bad effect on grades.

It tells me that pupils at examinations have been traditionally and habitually marked down, if they were from state schools.

Further evidence is in the way teachers at independent and grammar schools, seeing last year’s results, have marked their pupils up in order to maintain their lead.

What, you think the quality of their teaching or the abilities of their pupils have suddenly shot up by three percent since last year (for grammars) and 14 per cent since 2019 (for independents)?

That isn’t realistic.

And, coupled with the rise in A-level grades over the same period of time and for the same reason, it gives me reason to suggest that state school pupils who took exams in 2019 and at any year before need to get angry.

We should be demanding to know why our results were so low in comparison to the grammars and the independents.

What were the criteria used in marking our papers?

Was there inbuilt bias against state schools? If so, who demanded it?

Any such bias will certainly have -arbitrarily – blighted our careers ever since, and that is utterly unacceptable.

Realistically, we won’t get honest answers from a system that is biased against us. We’ll be fobbed off with lies.

So how about an experiment?

Let’s demand a new system in which exam papers are anonymised – pupils are given numbers to put on their papers, and then the papers are mixed up centrally before being sent to examiners who have not been told any details of their origin.

Then they would have to mark honestly, and then we might learn what has really been going on in the UK’s education system.

As one of millions who are likely to have been penalised on the basis of the school I attended, I’m up for it.

How about you?

Source: GCSE results: pupils achieve record numbers of top grades in England

Beware of this fake ‘NHS vaccination’ scam

I just received the above-imaged message in an email.

Does it look plausible to you? It isn’t.

Oh, the logo is nicely copied, I’m sure, as is the white-on-blue colour scheme.

But then we get to the text:

“This is a public health message from NHS.” Really? No “Dear Mike”?

“As part of the government’s coordinated response to Coronavirus,” – not Covid-19? – “NHS” – not “the NHS”? Not “NHS Wales” (in my case)? – “is performing selections for coronavirus” – note not “Coronavirus”; any official organisation would have had a set style regarding capital letters – “vaccination on the basis of family genetics and medical history.”

Hogwash. The vaccination programme is being carried out on the basis of a priority list that has been well-publicised. Family genetics and medical history are not part of that list.

“You have been selected to receive a coronavirus vaccination.” I don’t think so. I am a member of the very last priority group and here in Wales, the health service is nowhere near getting to me.

“Use this service to confirm/reject your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination:”

And then there’s a couple of links to a website run by an organisation called “shloker.com”. Strangely enough, both links lead to the same page. I haven’t clicked on either, for obvious reasons.

“NOTE: The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine is safe and effective. It gives you the best protection against coronavirus.”

What is this? Some attempt to persuade us to click on the links because the vaccine is “safe and effective”? Which vaccine? There are several in circulation now. And we all know there are arguments about both the safety and effectiveness of all of them.

There’s another section of text that is notable for its spelling and grammatical errors, among other things:

“Who can use this service
“You can only use this service if you have received an email/SMS regarding this invitation. You can not use this service for anyone other than yourself.
“You are also free to reject this invitation, your appointment will be issued to the next person in line in that case.”

Notice the last sentence – a threat that I will lose my place in the queue if I don’t click on the link.

“NHS National Health Service GOV.UK”

I am concerned that some people might be taken in by this scam, even though it is rather an obvious one. Please share this article to raise awareness of it.

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Beware this email campaign from scammers claiming to be HM Revenue & Customs (Vox Political Scrapbook)

I received one of these.

It was headed “2021 Reimbursement/Ref HM05012021 Payment confirmation” and stated that I needed to go to the “HMRC Online Payments website”  in order to receive £520.99.

I never clicked on the link. If HMRC is running a website called timeless-sunsets.com then I am Rishi Sunak!

A wave of scam text messages are being received across the UK, potentially duping people into giving up their card details in order to claim a non-existent government grant.

The scam has been quickly designed to take advantage of confusion following yesterday’s announcement of another national lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But there are a number of signals in the text message, including grammar and spelling errors despite claiming to be sent from HM Revenue and Customs, that can alert people to the fraud.

An HMRC spokesperson said: “HMRC will never offer a tax refund by text, email or phone. One way to check whether you are due a rebate is to log into your Personal Tax Account.”

Source: The Great HMRC Scam: Don’t fall for it – Dorset Eye

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Spread the word: avoid the vaccine scammers!

It was inevitable that, while the government blurred its messages, the scammers would turn up and pretend to offer the Covid-19 vaccine – at a price.

Read this:

Warning to all people due to have the Covid vaccine.

My dad just got a NHS text telling him to complete a form for his first vaccine. All official looking NHS form with all his details on.

He completed the form until at the end it then asked to confirm his Bank details.

He phoned the doctor’s surgery who confirmed this is a scam but a very well organised scam.

So please warn all parents and grandparents to be careful and confirm any info like this with your doctor or NHS.

This is a bloody awful scam from low lifes.

Yes it is.

Please get the message out to everybody. The more people know about this, the less likely it is to succeed.

Nobody will have to pay for a genuine NHS Covid-19 vaccination.

Anybody receiving any form of communication asking them to pay for inoculation should report it to the police.

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Tory Covid-19 blunder opens opportunity for Universal Credit scammers

Loadsamoney: but if you are approached by someone claiming to get it for you by exploiting a loophole in the Universal Credit claim system, say no. YOU will be caught and they will get away with cash you’ll have to repay.

An old scam has been given a new lease of life after a glitch was discovered in the application process for Covid-19-related Universal Credit advance payments.

It seems some families looking for extra cash during the coronavirus pandemic have been able to obtain advance payments of £1,500 on up to three separate occasions.

Enter the fraudsters.

Posing as Job Centre staff or personal loan advisers, they have been offering to help UC claimants input false information into the online claim system.

Then, when the payments come through, the scammers have been taking a cut of £500 – one-third of the payments.

It’s terrific for these criminals because the money is in the name of the claimant – so the claimant will take the rap when the Department for Work and Pensions catches up with them.

And mark my words: the DWP will catch up with anybody submitting a fraudulent claim.

It’s an old scam that has been given a new lease of life by the Tory government, because their ramshackle online Universal Credit system can’t cope with a simple change to accommodate a contingency fund.

So if you’ve been contacted by someone claiming they can help you make thousands of pounds from Universal Credit, and asking you to provide the information they need to get it, my advice is this:

Don’t. You will be caught, and you will be fined. And the scammers will move on to their next victim, taking with them the money you’ll have to pay back.

Source: Universal Credit £1500 cash boost loophole – DWP issues warning to fraudsters – Birmingham Live

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DWP persecutes claimants rather than scammers over ‘industrial scale’ benefit fraud

Despair: It seems the DWP’s plan to tackle Universal Credit fraud is to prosecute the victims, rather than the criminals.

Only one scammer has been prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions in connection with a fraud that has cost the nation an estimated £150 million per month.

The 145 dedicated staff hired by the DWP to investigate seem more interested in prosecuting genuine benefit claimants – with one already convicted and 28 facing prosecution.

Doesn’t that seem the wrong way around?

The scam works because people who need to claim benefits have been made increasingly desperate by the economic conditions created by the Conservative government.

Here’s how I described it, back in July:

“The scammer approaches the victim – a person in need of quick cash – and offers to get them a government grant or a payday loan for a small fee. They demand the victim’s identity details.

“The scammer then simply goes online and makes a Universal Credit claim in the victim’s name, demanding an advance loan in the process.

“The DWP’s online system automatically approves the claim because it doesn’t know any better and transfers the money into the victim’s bank account – from which the scammer then takes a huge amount of the money that has been handed over.

“The victim is left with a small fraction of the loan, but owing the entire amount back to the DWP. Not only that, but any other benefits they may have been claiming will have been cancelled.

“So the victim is left much worse-off – and the government department doesn’t care. It will pursue them for the full amount.”

This is what we are seeing now – the DWP is apparently pursuing the victims, rather than the perpetrators.

“It seems the scam works because of Universal Credit’s ‘digital by design’ nature; the computerised system automatically approves the application, no matter how bizarre the claims in it.

“So thousands of pounds have been given in response to claims on behalf of (allegedly) a 19-year-old with six blind children, people with children called Lisa, Bart and Homer – or indeed Ha, Ha and Ha – and people claiming “Harry Kane” is their landlord.

“Apparently 100,000 or more such advances are being paid every month. At up to £1,500 a go, that’s a lot of money.”

It seems the DWP’s 145 investigators are currently looking into 85,000 cases, with the caseload increasing all the time.

Has anything been done to stop the computerised Universal Credit claim system from automatically allowing these scams? If not, why not? Do the Tories see it as another way to persecute the vulnerable?

It seems to This Writer that there is only one way to stop the scammers from exploiting the vulnerable – and to stop the Tories from persecuting them.

Elect a Labour government that will end Universal Credit and implement a fair system in which people won’t be pushed into the arms of criminals.

It’s that simple.

Source: DWP: Just one scammer prosecuted so far for snaring people in Universal Credit fraud – Mirror Online

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Universal Credit loophole that Tories never fixed leads to huge ID theft scam

Amber Rudd: This scandal has come to light on her watch. Will she take responsibility and quit (again)?

The government is handing huge wodges of cash to identity thieves because of a loophole in Universal Credit that the Tories were either too stupid to anticipate, or about which they simply didn’t care.

In all honesty, the scam also relies on the victims themselves being stupid and desperate.

Fortunately for the scammers, economic conditions created by – guess who? – the Conservative government has nurtured an atmosphere of desperation among thousands upon thousands of people who are living hand-to-mouth – and desperation leads people to do unwise things.

It works like this:

The scammer approaches the victim – a person in need of quick cash – and offers to get them a government grant or a payday loan for a small fee. They demand the victim’s identity details.

How do these scammers know who to target? The victim on the BBC News website says she was approached by a smartly-dressed man with a Job Centre Plus card. Where are these people getting their information?

The scammer then simply goes online and makes a Universal Credit claim in the victim’s name, demanding an advance loan in the process.

The DWP’s online system automatically approves the claim because it doesn’t know any better and transfers the money into the victim’s bank account – from which the scammer then takes a huge amount of the money that has been handed over.

The victim is left with a small fraction of the loan, but owing the entire amount back to the DWP. Not only that, but any other benefits they may have been claiming will have been cancelled.

So the victim is left much worse-off – and the government department doesn’t care. It will pursue them for the full amount.

It seems the scam works because of Universal Credit’s “digital by design” nature; the computerised system automatically approves the application, no matter how bizarre the claims in it.

So thousands of pounds have been given in response to claims on behalf of (allegedly) a 19-year-old with six blind children, people with children called Lisa, Bart and Homer – or indeed Ha, Ha and Ha – and people claiming “Harry Kane” is their landlord.

Apparently 100,000 or more such advances are being paid every month. At up to £1,500 a go, that’s a lot of money.

Now get ready for the double-punchline.

Remember when the Tories were trying to accuse genuinely sick and disabled people of benefit fraud, claiming they were “scroungers” and “skivers” to take their cash and drive them to their deaths?

The fraud rate at the time was just two per cent. Now, DWP estimates suggest fraud has skyrocketed – because of a loophole that the government built into the system.

That’s the first punchline.

Here’s the second: This scam was reported by the Daily Express more than a month ago but the BBC has only brought it to wider public attention today.

Why the delay?

Is it because nobody trusts the news media anymore, after they spent the last few years pushing pro-Tory government propaganda?

Source: Universal credit: Multi-million pound scam targets claimants – BBC News

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Who will ‘Help to Work’ really help?

140428IDSshrug

The government’s latest draconian measure – to drive people who have been living off the state for more than three years into all the nonexistent jobs that ministers insist are waiting for them – was launched today. (Monday)

Help to Work forces jobseekers to sign on every day, commit to six months of voluntary work, or sign up to a training scheme (the last two effectively removing them from the government’s unemployment figures without getting them a job) – or face having their Jobseeker’s Allowance docked for increasing lengths of time.

It’s clearly a scam to fiddle the joblessness statistics but, dear reader, you’re intelligent enough to have worked it out before you even started reading this.

Of course, voluntary work must be offered without coercion – otherwise it’s slavery – and for this reason leading charities have already announced that they will boycott the mandatory work placement part of the scheme.

Particularly disturbing – and we should be grateful that they highlighted this – is the fact that this aspect would lead to jobseekers doing more than double the 300-hours’-maximum community work than convicted criminals, who are ordered to carry out certain tasks as punishment for their offences.

The Guardian used the government’s own data to prove that Help to Work does not increase anybody’s chances of getting a job, and is more likely to put people off signing on for the benefits to which they are entitled – a ‘punishment’ effect that the government is desperate to play down.

Esther McVey, speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme in support of the scheme, said instead that it would be particularly useful for “people who have been away from the marketplace and the workplace for long periods of time”, and specifically mentioned those suffering from mental illness.

All right then, let’s ask this:

How well would this scheme fare in trying to find a job for a man aged 60 with no academic qualifications worth mentioning (left school at 14 and has lied about further education achievements), whose working life consists of a failed Army career that lasted less than six years, followed by irregular stints selling arms, working in a property company and selling gun-related magazines, in between periods on the dole. He has been funded by the taxpayer continuously since 1992 – a total of 22 years ‘parked’ at our expense. There are concerns about his state of mind, with fears that he suffers from paranoia and delusions.

Could Help to Work really find a job for a man like this?

Let’s hope so – because, if there’s any justice, Iain Duncan Smith will be looking for a job after next year’s general election.

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