u/Beginning-Mix1526

So early last week I posted in here regarding my partner’s sister committing benefit fraud. I call it ‘single mum fraud’ but I think the actual term is cohabitation. Basically an engaged couple living together for 5 years but claiming not to be so the mum can claim £1500+ of fraudulent benefits.

Anyway, my partner has received a phone call yesterday from her sister in pieces down the phone because she had a ‘DWP compliance officer’ turn up at their property on Monday unannounced. She didn’t let them in however she spotted the officer looking through the windows and doors before knocking (they live in a ground floor flat). They had a brief conversation at the doorstep and my partner’s sister insisted she is single and always had been. The compliance officer mentioned the reports of this not being the case (made by me) and they needed to investigate. Anyway by the sounds of it the officer left after 10 minutes at the doorstep and that was that.

However, yesterday she has received a phone call from the officer that appeared at their front door on Monday that she is being invited to an interview ‘under caution’. She’s freaking out, researching cases of fraud and convinced she will go to prison (my own research on these cases tells me this 99.9% wont happen). There’s now a bit of a witch hunt amongst friends and family on who reported her.

I feel like I’ve made a mistake but at the same time was the right thing to do. It’s the 3 kids i feel mostly for.

I won’t bother responding anyway near as much this time as I did my initial post. I know 90% of the responses will be hate and abuse and I’m fine with that. I just thought this would be an interesting update to show the DWP do actually investigate this stuff, even if it does take months to action on it.

So I know a couple who claim to be separated and the female is a single mum. It’s not the case at all, she has 3 young children all fathered by this man. They live in a flat together and have done for 6 years. The dad has no connection to the flat as all of his documents and personal information still has his parent’s address attached to it.

With the mum claiming to be a single mum and one child having very mild autism (yet to be assessed, but went through ‘right to choose’ or something like that?) so she claims DLA and carers. This has then opened up a whole load of benefits for the couple. I did the EntitledTo calculator and all of her benefits calculate to £2.7-3k per month depending on the child’s DLA rate. To get the equivalent the mum
Would need a 40-45k a year job. She openly says this is why she doesn’t work as she would actually be worse off. This is how I realised they were lying about them not being together on top of the partner never taking her to her UC appointments and his address not being on his driving license. It all started to piece together.

Anyway, as a normal annoyed law abiding taxpayer I’ve reported them MANY times via the .gov Report Benefit Fraud site. I fill out as much info as possible, the only thing I couldn’t supply is the mum’s NI number! Everything else was provided.

Anyway, a week after reporting her on the most recent occasion the couple mentioned she was asked on her ‘UC journal’ if she had a partner and if they were living with her as UC had received info. She simply said ‘no I am single’ and it seems to be case closed…

So my question is, do UC actually investigate this? All 3 of the kids are spaced out by 2 years, have the dad’s name on the birth certificate and you can even see his white work van outside the flat on Google Maps street view. The same vehicle registration as I provided on the report benefit fraud website! The most basic surveillance of the couple at school drop off/pick up times would catch them together, so why do UC not do this? Or maybe just ask the school if the dad is involved at all?

TIA!

So I’m really, really set on starting a DJ studio with my savings. I work in I.T on a 3 on 3 off basis doing shift work so lots of days to operate it. I’ve found a shared business centre that’s perfect for this to initially be a side hustle as it avoids business rates.

I’d only offer club standard Pioneer equipment. At first 2 ‘Pro’ rooms with DJM-A9 mixers and CDJ-3000x. Maybe add a DJS-1000 for fun too. I’d also have integrated lighting, top monitors and headphones etc.

Basically, is this something you’d all use as bedroom DJs or professional DJs who need somewhere to practise? And how much would you realistically pay to use the equipment? I was thinking £25 an hour or £60 for a good 3 hour session would be fair? I’d also include optional extras like video equipment to stream or that automatically records and saves the footage to my Dropbox and then I could forward on for £10 etc.

The closest to this I can find are Pirate studios across the country that are as cheap as £11. However they look quite shabby, not the latest equipment and don’t supply headphones or great lighting effects.

If this was popular I’m then considering expanding and investing in a B2B offering, think 4 CDJ-3000x with a DJM-V10 and some other samplers.

More than willing to spend £15,000-£20,000 for the equipment, soundproofing, furniture, insurances and lease to get this off the ground!

TIA

So I’m looking at starting a DJ studio as a side hustle in the evenings. The initial outlay will be £15,000 of savings for top of the range club standard equipment, furniture, lighting, soundproofing and security.

I’ll be renting a very small workshop/light industrial unit for this through a company like BizSpace. All payments will be taken online through my scheduling tool Accuity integrated into my Squarespace website.

Basically, I hope to generate £1000-£1500 a month profit from my business on an estimated 30-40% occupancy rate. I’ll set this up via a Limited Company as my job as a higher rate tax payer eats up all of my personal allowance.

Now I’m looking into business bank accounts. It’s either Mettle or Starling. Mettle has the free FreeAgent accounting software everyone raves about whereas Starling has a superior UI and zero fees for virtually everything I’ll be doing. Will the built in ‘Starling Accounting’ be enough to do my own accounts myself? Does anybody here use Starling for business banking and able to vouch for them?

TIA!