Forum menu
Someone in my neighbourhood who I occasionally talk to, tells me she's on higher rate disability living allowance, and can't work because her shoulders dislocate, which is strange as she told me some time ago that she had an operation to basically "bolt them in", but when I see her pick up her Labrador and carry it down the road they seem fine! But she also told me that she gets carers allowance for looking after her son who also gets higher rate disability living allowance (although he can ride his bike to school 4 miles away on the days he doesn't get himself to and from high school, and plays badminton for the county team), whilst her husband gets careers allowance for looking after her ! As for walking she's able to walk the 3dogs she has for miles, so in this case it does seem a good scam .....oh the doctor said she was fine, but she appealed as the doctor was biased because they had complained about him some years previously....why is there no way to get these things reported, so the money does go to those who do genuinely need it ?
Pretty poor to be honest, no all CAPS sections, reasonable sentence structure and an ok use of punctuation...
3/10 😆
I just had a biscuit, better go back to the cupboard for the rest of the packet...
Do you realise you accidentally posted your internal monologue on the internet?
is she telling the truth do you reckon?
Awful punctuation
Walking sticks and excuses should be banned.
work in several homes that get their incomes from disability benifits.. generous allowances for arthritis allow one couple to claim for the mothers arthritis the husband is her carer whilst the son has his mother as his carer as he has something on an autistic scale. they have a large people carrier as they are disabled which allows them to get about the country doing those dog agility competitions displays with their 4 chocolate labs.
You should dislocate her shoulders, steal her walking stick and traumatise her son. That'll mean they are earning that allowance. Oh and report the dog for being a lazy bastard
Hardly a massive scam is it.
Not working even though you can, so you can get just under £3k a year in disability benefits.
I'll stick with working I reckon.
My wife receives Carers Allowance for our son because she is his main carer. He has autism. But it's OK because he can walk on his own and doesn't look disabled. I do some caring when she's not there, so shall we give some of the allowance back for those days?
Crawl back under your ****ing bridge OP. ****.
Whilst I have no doubt a small minority do manage to abuse it its never going to be the big bucks and clamping down on the minority will almost certainly result in people who do need it being deprived.
So I would prefer some who dont deserve it getting it rather than those who do not.
So I would prefer some who dont deserve it getting it rather than those who do not.
How dare you be so reasonable!
surely she told you all the above discreetly, and not to be broadcast on a bike forum, looking for attention for yourself as being a self righteous idiot, does the trollmaster know youre on the internet, without permission.
Why do you care though? It's not because you feel them getting what they do (despite in your opinion not deserving it) deprives someone else getting it, because you know it doesn't work like that. Is it actually because they're getting something you don't?
My Mum has MS and has been stuck in a wheelchair for 16 years with my Dad being her carer, is that allowed?
My wife has been wheelchair bound since October last year after an unsuccesful operation. We have been waiting 3 months (2 no shows by them) for the face to face assessment to see if we are eligible. We have 4 children to aupport and currently we are surviving on my part time wage - and have been since her symptoms started about 4 years ago. She wasn't diagnosed in time and now cannot walk. I had to sell my brand new unridden Remedy because of the lack of time due to looking after the family.
I agree that some people take the mickey and claim when there is nothing wrong with them. I know of one man who is registered blind, has a guide dog and his wife is his carer. He has to stop the dog walking into the road when traffic is coming. Pretty sure he isn't blind with his photoshopping and dvd pirating skills. But no one is bothered when they get reported.
Many cases are relevant and by no means is it easy money.
Maybe the operation didn't work?
Maybe it left her in constant pain?
Maybe she walks the dogs to distract herself from it?
Maybe her son's only outlet is his bike and badminton?
Maybe you don't know the whole story?
Please don't be so judgemental it's poisonous to the soul.
So I would prefer some who dont deserve it getting it rather than those who do not
I don't often say /thread, but /thread.
Just as a counterpoint, OP.
It's a fun watch.
Brother is epileptic, you wouldn't know it, seems fine, can't work because of stress and panic attacks, plus of course the tonic clonics...but you know, otherwise, fit and healthy...
does get benefits, would rather not, but y'know OP, crack on.
To be fair to the OP. These people might be pulling a fast one, and if that's his only experience of people claiming then it could colour his opinion.
Devils Advocaat and all that.
why is there no way to get these things reported
There is....and it's not posting on STW. Unless the DWP read it.
If you think they are taking them mick then report them?
When I tried to report someone who could run, climb ladders and carry heavy loads to the blue badge people I was told that he might have a disability which wasn't obvious (even though the badge is for people who have difficulty walking according to their guidelines).
Such as ? Was my question...'" . he might be blind" was their answer.
I gave up at that point.
Disability living seems like easy money
You sir, are a gaping arsehole.
Next time you see her, give her a clip around the head, with your Daily Mail
We've been through the PIP process. The system is fundamentally designed for you to fail, it's a postcode lottery.
"You don't look sick." What starts with 'come here' and ends in 'ouch'?
why is there no way to get these things reported
There almost certainly is.
Perhaps you would say the same if you met a friend of mine, as she arrives into the disabled parking space at the supermarket? She will get out with husband, take her toddler and walk calmly in, pushing a trolley, smiling at you.
What you can't see is 6 years ago a bus slid on ice and took her car head on. She smashed most of the bones in her lower body, pelvis down. About five out of seven days she is in agony, the other two just pain. Life is difficult, especially as she has had two strokes since as well due to the brain injury.
Not all disability Is visible, not all are full on sch day.
Good health is worth more than all the benefits in the world. Try walking a mile in her shoes then come back and report...
MrsMC has a blue badge as she struggles to carry things very far. She also gets the lowest level of DLA.
Living with cerebral palsy is real easy OP. 👿
OP I think you will find Disability Living Allowance (DLA) will have been phased out by the end of the year for Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
My wife was given a lifetime award of Higher rate Mobility & mid rate Care back in 2006 for her Secondary Progressive MS initially diagnosed in 1989.
By this time walking was very poor and she had quite a few falls by 2010 she was non weight bearing and we were paying for carers so I could go to work without being too worried all the time.
Then in January we received the dreaded PIP form all 41 pages of it with such loaded questions as
"Preparing a meal for yourself, do you use adapted cutlery?"
YES
NO
SOMETIMES
OK so I filled the form in using the comments box "how about I cant prepare a meal as I cant safely even feed myself with a spoon"
The signature bit was fun given my wife used to do Calligraphy and now cant even hold a pen never mind make any meaningful marks on paper.
I wrote some pretty pithy remarks on that form I can tell you.
1 month later we had a visit from a very nice nurse for the physical assessment who looked very embarrassed and at the end of the assessment was right at the point of crying and apologised to me for having to put my wife through that.
Upshot is now her care portion has now been increased to the enhanced rate about £100 a month more.
That might seem great but when we have had to spend over £9000 pounds on a through floor lift and £2000 on a custom powered chair for her in the last year or so on top of all the adaptions in the house that have ongoing costs its bugger all.
I'm sure there are the odd cases that manage to con their way through the system but from our own bitter experience they must be bloody good at it.
it's a case of one person can ruin it for most etc. there is people that work every system and everybody knows this, it's just the getting caught part that's difficult. not so much dla but benefit related there is a couple near us, whom the husband used to work,but found that if they went for certain loopholes he actually made more of the system. que a few holidays each year , plenty of eating out and drinking.
So, like, why is there a National Fraud Helpline in existance if, like you lot seem to think, nobody is defrauding benefit claims and the OP is just another moany old ****?
Yes I'm thinking of having a leg amputated so I can claim disability pension and do a bit of begging on the streets.
you don't have to go to them extremes, say you have a fear of public spaces.
1 month later we had a visit from a very nice nurse for the physical assessment who looked very embarrassed and at the end of the assessment was right at the point of crying and apologised to me for having to put my wife through that.
At the risk of being a Monty Python Yorkshireman, "you were lucky."
We filed in all that stuff, all about mobility and psychological problems and the rest, and got back a total score of... zero. The original interview for PIP they were 20 minutes late, got through half of the form and then left, made up answers for the questions that they'd never asked us.
We appealed. She had a string of physical and mental conditions including but not limited to diagnosed EDS (when causes joints to painfully dislocate and can seriously reduce mobility) and diagnosed Asperger's. Questions on the form like "can you cook a basic meal" when I'd have been worried about her reheating a ready meal in the oven, how far she can walk (at the time, not far and she needed a stick) etc etc.
Revised score on appeal: zero. The entire process is bullshit.
you don't have to go to them extremes, say you have a fear of public spaces.
Please don't talk shit.
Cougar - Moderator
At the risk of being a Monty Python Yorkshireman, "you were lucky."
Cougar please don't say we were lucky.
She is basically a prisoner in her own body
She cant do much more than hold a camelbak podium bottle to drink from and that is a pretty fraught operation as she has very bad proximal reflex where her hand violently shakes near her.
Everything else she needs people to function.
Cougar please don't say we were lucky.
Sorry. I'm very tired, that was insensitive of me and I apologise unreservedly.
My point was simply "you were lucky" in that they eventually paid attention to you. I didn't really think it through.
The system is funked beyond belief. My mum just got a load of forms from an assessment of my now dead father stating that [i]I[/i] can't feed, dress, or bathe myself. Throughout his dementia , macular degeneration, cancer, diabetes, atrial fibrillation.....she never got a moments respite or any home care, when asking for assistance to get him to hospital in Manchester for an eye operation she was asked if she couldn't just put him on the train. But OP i'd be fascinated to hear your take on the blacks and the pooftahs
Its OK join the tired club Cougar, I've been on "holiday" for 2 weeks and was looking forward to the M-i-L helping out with cooking and feeding for my wife.
Only she slipped in their kitchen and shattered her leg (2 pints of blood lost plated & pinned + skin grafts) so have been caring for Wife F-i-L & M-i-l over the last 2 weeks.
I feel your pain/anger as I was in a really bad place while filling in those forms. I don't mind admitting I got my wife to bed and then came back downstairs and cried my eyes out
Sorry dude, I totally hear you.
The treatment of my father through a year in hospital and two in a care home is a whole other story, which I'm not going to embark on at midnight or I won't sleep. Remind me tomorrow.
Some tough tales to hear. Keep on keeping on people.
The problem with all those "lucrative" disability allowances and gold-plated cars is very few people* are prepared to put the time and effort into qualifying for them.
*With the exception of Red Bull and downhill riders.