This is crazy. How it was able to go on for so long.
There should be check ups every 2 to 3 years for this kind of scam. "Gambling problems" Eh, no, robbing the State problems more so.
I'm glad he got away with it for so long. Otherwise it would have just gone to the German bankers and inefficient HSE
And they will recover feck all by the looks of it zzz
He is 7 years away from his pension. Lock him up until his 67, then don't allow him any pension. sure he has got 66 years worth of the state pension already.. but Ireland doesn't do "consequences"
How does stuff like this get through the system for so long. Outrageous
Could be related to this. Records aren't kept up to date and we all know of the dead voting.
This is just extraordinary, utterly baffling and shocking in every sense. Notwithstanding the actual act of claiming his Dead parents pension the lack of oversight and controls by the department is astonishing.
Heather Humphries is returning Jobseekers payments to post offices for collection, to allegedly combat fraud (it's actually to prop up Post offices) and yet this chancer able to collect his dead parents pensions for 33 years at his local post office.
The incompetence of DSP is breathtaking, it seems it was impossible to track down Death Certs , its beggars belief. How are the DSP not able to cross check registered deaths against pensions being claimed 🤔 it took an intrepid Garda detective weeks to track down Graves were the parents were buried.
For years now, Revenue and DSP have been sharing data , there's also sharing of information with the HSE it's just bizzare a State agency tasked with paying pensions can't at the very least check on occasion death notices, even apart from the death certs, how difficult is it to check RIP.IE 😳
There was clearly no Health care or prescription charges for the deceased parents in 33 years did no one ask any questions 🤔
And then there's the presidential payment for those reaching 100, the fraudster almost got another €2500 to add to his cash pile.
Mind boggling stuff .
It appears greed caught up with him in the end.
It certainly did albeit I wondered had the presidents payment not been offered would he still be claiming the pension. I'd say there's a serious review going on at the moment 😏
Some others should be joining him in jail.
Would it have been possible to turn that payment down I wonder or would that have raised concerns?
I suspect that saying no would have flagged up the investigation also.
I'm fairly sure there was another case recently of someone getting caught for one pension the exact same way. So any scammers now know they need to figure out how to tell the DSP someone has recently died when they are in fact long dead some time before they would turn 100!
Because public service departments don't communicate properly with each other and PPS numbers aren't used effectively.
We applied for a passport for our daughter last year and we had to submit our marriage cert, passports and birth certs - all of which have been issued by public service departments and should be linked to our PPS numbers. Then we could present to Garda Station,prove identity and PPS, submit application and let public service department check their own records to verify all documentation on the Irish system.
Link everything to the public service card and PPS number and clamp down on this type of behaviour.
The Public Services Card would have been introduced during the time they were dead, how did he get around that?
I'd be pretty sure red flags would have been raised but I got a sense when the Social welfare inspector called the son about the payment, they were already suspicious and gardai had started making enquiries.
Imagine in this day an age a garda had to go to a few graveyards to look for evidence of a burial and death of the parents, it's just extraordinary.
The graveyard searching thing suggests the deaths were both never registered - itself a crime I believe but probably not enough punishment to chase up.
Yes he never registered the deaths so that would have stopped that picking it up, not sure if it's cross referenced with pensions and state benefits. I know before prisoners were in jail still getting full dole each week while they were there, some systems not linked up.
The Public Service Card wasn't fully rolled out. Stopped by a court decision. A mistake as it would have pinned down such cases in the future.
I wonder how common this is? It must cost millions.
33 years **** me, and people wonder why the public service is often scoffed at.
Cushy work and no accountability in certain departments. With all the data they have to use at their disposal, if someone could actively take the initiative and engage their brain.
At least he didn’t bring the parents into the post office to collect the pension!
The Irish Times report says that the son sent in a photo of an old man he knew with the PSC application, and it wasn't queried. In the early days, pensioners didn't have to attend in person for PSC, so this just facilitated the ongoing fraud.
It would make sense deaths not registered. On the state benefits forum there's literally thousands of post relating to DSP seeking proof of income, reviews of Disability allowance payments, Medical reviews , requests for bank statements etc and yet this chancer collecting his dead parents pension for 33 years without so much as a Phone call from DSP. Did I see he even managed to update a PSC using a photo of an elderly neighbour 😳
I was waiting 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Why aren't deaths registered by the hospital or undertaker? That's madness, in a time of grief someone is expected to fill in a few forms. Undertakers should be responsible for this.
DSP sent out the standard review forms on several occasions, and the son sent them back, so no red flags were raised. Given the general phone scanning issues that exist, the department wouldn't "cold call" people, especially pensioners.
I also read that when the father turned pension age back in the 80s, he claimed for his wife who had died several years before...
Yes it should be undertaker as a plan B who had to make some draft registration of the death and then a family member make the proper registration. It's an offence to not register a death within 3 months but I've never heard of anyone being fined for it, I imagine it's the next of kin responsible for it.
I'd say that's fair enough but 33 years and not so much as a phone call to one of the parents or for that matter a pre arranged visit 🤔 we've heard all about welfare of the elderly, measures to protect them re management of money, bank account withdrawals etc. I'm not suggesting it's DSP job to look out for the welfare of the elderly but not a single contact from health services in 33 year years is extraordinary.
Were the names still on the Electoral Register?
It was also mentioned that prior to the father's death that he was collecting the pension of his dead wife, so the son didn't lick it off the stones.
I couldn’t resist 🥸
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