Scroungers.com: Website charges £95 for tips on claiming

An internet company is doing lucrative business selling cynical tips on how to squeeze the most disability benefit from the Government – for £95 a time.

Customers who sign up are given advice designed to convince ‘snooping’ doctors that patients are sick enough to receive the maximum handouts.

Claimants are told to hide any evidence suggesting they may not be eligible for the biggest payouts, such as concealing the fact they are able to travel by public transport or ensuring their walking sticks look well used.

The company, Benefits and Work Publishing, is part of the booming industry cashing in on Britain’s staggering rise in disability benefit payouts.

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed how the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) had cost the taxpayer an extra £3.1billion a year under Labour, rising to £8.8billion.

Part of the increase is due to the growing number of drug addicts and alcoholics claiming – up from 3,000 to almost 17,000 in a decade.

The amount claimants receive depends on the severity of their disability.

Anyone who signs up to receive emails from the http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk website is told how to convince doctors and tribunal hearings that they deserve the maximum handout.

One suggestion is that claimants do not use public transport to attend the hearings.

The company advises: ‘One assumption by tribunals is that people who use public transport have less serious health problems.

'They assume you are able to get to a bus stop and stand for long periods, as well as coping with strangers, crowding, jolting and frequent stops and starts.

'Try to get a lift or a taxi right to the door of the tribunal venue.’

Another email says: ‘Claimants often get themselves into difficulties by talking too much.

'We’re not suggesting you should attempt to lie or hide the truth at your hearing.

'But the best policy is definitely to answer each question as best you can and then ... keep quiet.’

Claimants are also told how to act when a doctor calls at their home for a check-up.

They are warned: ‘He will be hunting for clues: things which he considers do not fit in with your claimed level of disability.

‘For example, is your inhaler on a high shelf and covered in dust, looking as if it hasn’t been used, rather than in easy reach of where you’re sitting?

'Does the walking stick in the hall have an unmarked and unworn rubber ferrule on the bottom?

‘Prepare for a doctor’s visit ... and put right anything that might be misinterpreted.

'Remove the dusty inhaler, or put it where you can reach it.

'Another thing you can do is explain to the doctor, before he even notices, the reason for the new rubber on your walking stick.’

Tory MP Philip Davies criticised the site, saying: ‘As far as I’m concerned people setting up websites like these should be prosecuted for aiding and abetting benefit fraud.

'Genuine cases don’t need to employ a service like this. It’s for fiddlers.

'But it just goes to underline what a soft touch this Government is when it comes to benefits.’

Benefits and Work Publishing is run by 49-year-old Stephen Donnison – a ‘welfare rights worker’ – and former barrister Jo-Anne Whitehead, 45, known as ‘Holiday’.

The pair’s previous internet activities include websites dedicated to two bitter feuds with neighbours and landlords.

At the last home they rented, in Churchinford, Somerset, they set up a website carrying a scathing attack on the inhabitants of the cottage next door.

Two years earlier, Mr Donnison built another website targeting the landlord of his rented bungalow in Foxham, Wiltshire, complaining of ‘rats, sewage, noise, chemicals, death and bird flu’.

The couple are now thought to be living near Lyme Regis, Dorset.

Their website offers only a PO Box address, and a phone number that plays a message saying they are unavailable until later this week.

Source: Mail on Sunday