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In general, for social services the fraudster problem is extremely overblown. Here in The Netherlands in 2016 we had 120-150 million euros of fraud on 77 billio

by jorvi 5y ago

In general, for social services the fraudster problem is extremely overblown. Here in The Netherlands in 2016 we had 120-150 million euros of fraud on 77 billion euros of social service spending. That's less than 0.2%. Divided by the amount of social service recipients, it amounts to 17 euros of fraud per person. https://www-rtlnieuws-nl.translate.goog/economie/column/41401/factcheck-het-onnodige-fiasco-rond-uitkeringsfraude?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-rtlnieuws-nl.translate.goog/economie/column/4140...

ledauphin 5y ago
If someone 'steals my identity' and gets my tax return money before I do, it could be quite a lot of work for me to prove to the IRS that it was stolen and that I should get the money. Which shifts the burden of dealing with identity theft onto legitimate claimants. I wouldn't be surprised if this same thing could happen with social services, but I don't have much experience with the system. In other words, I'm not sure if the overall problem we're trying to solve is simply "avoid waste" - it might be more like "prevent the average person from having their identity stolen and their time/money wasted". Which seems like a problem worth trying to solve even if the incidence is relatively low?
- someguydave 5y ago
  Keeping the average business owner from being harassed by fake/false/dubious unemployment claims would also be good.
kansface 5y ago
In California alone, at least 20 Billion dollars (over 10%) in pandemic relief funds were fraudulently given away. Quite a bit of it went to felons in jail! This is surely an underestimate. The Netherlands are not comparable to the US. Americans don't trust our institutions because by and large, they aren't trust worthy.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
In absolute terms, 120-150 million Euros is still a vast sum of money. It's still worth trying to crack down on.

by jorvi 5y ago

ledauphin 5y ago

If someone 'steals my identity' and gets my tax return money before I do, it could be quite a lot of work for me to prove to the IRS that it was stolen and that I should get the money. Which shifts the burden of dealing with identity theft onto legitimate claimants. I wouldn't be surprised if this same thing could happen with social services, but I don't have much experience with the system. In other words, I'm not sure if the overall problem we're trying to solve is simply "avoid waste" - it might be more like "prevent the average person from having their identity stolen and their time/money wasted". Which seems like a problem worth trying to solve even if the incidence is relatively low?

someguydave 5y ago
Keeping the average business owner from being harassed by fake/false/dubious unemployment claims would also be good.

kansface 5y ago

In California alone, at least 20 Billion dollars (over 10%) in pandemic relief funds were fraudulently given away. Quite a bit of it went to felons in jail! This is surely an underestimate. The Netherlands are not comparable to the US. Americans don't trust our institutions because by and large, they aren't trust worthy.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

In absolute terms, 120-150 million Euros is still a vast sum of money. It's still worth trying to crack down on.