Jason
02-19-2011, 09:47 PM
A couple of years ago my friend decided to quit his job because he didn't like it. Nothing out of the ordinary except ever since then he and his wife have been finding ways to abuse the system. It started with their kids receiving free meals at school because they now made little enough to qualify. After that he applied for (and for some reason qualified for) unemployment benefits. They never told anyone he was receiving additional income so their kids still receive free meals to this day.
That was just the beginning. He received unemployment for close to two years and the entire time he was working odd jobs and never reported it to unemployment so he received full benefits. The only reason he bothered to find a real full time job was because there were talks that Congress wasn't going to extend benefits.
After that they cooked up another plan. They would stop paying their mortgage, the wife would quit her job and 'go to school' and apply for all of the school loans she qualifies for because she is now 'unemployed' and has children. The idea was it would look as if they are struggling and they could qualify for a loan modification. They stopped paying their mortgage for 6 months and for a while there it looked as if their plan was going to backfire. Their house was in foreclosure and they had a month to pay off their back payments or they would lose their house. They saved the school loan money and asked all of their friends and family for loans to save their house. No one could loan them any money so they only had 2000 dollars saved up.
Turns out their plan ended up working perfectly. They got their house payments reduced from 1200 a month down to 600 a month because the mortgage company forgave part of their debt and lowered their interest rate to 2%. It gets better. Now because only the husband is working they also qualify for 500 dollars a month in food stamps, the government pays 100 dollars of their electric bill every month, their entire family is now on medicaid with absolutely no deductible of any kind, they might qualify for welfare and the mortgage company forgave the 6 months payments they were behind on. The first thing they did when they found out the mortgage company was forgiving their back payments was spend the 2000 dollars they had saved up, not on bills of course.
To sum it up their mortgage payments have been halved, their 6 months of mortgage payments they were behind on were forgiven, they receive 500 dollars a month in food stamps, 100 dollars a month for their electric bill, the whole family is on medicaid, the kids get free lunches at school, they receive money in school loans and they might also get welfare in the near future. Oh and a year before the husband quit they filed bankruptcy and wrote off close to 70,000 dollars in debt.
This all seems so wrong to me. I have nothing at all against programs such as food stamps or welfare or medicaid but those should be reserved for the truly needy. Those who fell on hard times because their job was eliminated, or they became disabled in a car accident. Not for someone who quit his job because he didn't like it. It's not as if these two are living in some run down shack living off of mac and cheese. They live on the same block I do and it's a good neighborhood. They also own 3 vehicles, they pay upwards of 120 dollars a month for cable and internet, they have a huge 50 inch plasma TV in their living room, each person in the house has their own laptop and the newest version of iphone.
Makes me wonder why I don't quit my job and stop paying my bills and cash in like they did. What I am really wondering is can I do anything about this? I really don't think it's right and wish I could report them for fraud or something but honestly I don't think anything they did was illegal.
The wife today said to me that she did the math and figured that if she got a part time job working 20 hours a week they would lose the food stamps, medicaid and the 100 dollars towards the electric bill so after the 600 dollars they lose out on she figured she'd be working 80 hours a month just to break even and they would all lose out on medical benefits. So she said why should I work? Why work indeed.
That was just the beginning. He received unemployment for close to two years and the entire time he was working odd jobs and never reported it to unemployment so he received full benefits. The only reason he bothered to find a real full time job was because there were talks that Congress wasn't going to extend benefits.
After that they cooked up another plan. They would stop paying their mortgage, the wife would quit her job and 'go to school' and apply for all of the school loans she qualifies for because she is now 'unemployed' and has children. The idea was it would look as if they are struggling and they could qualify for a loan modification. They stopped paying their mortgage for 6 months and for a while there it looked as if their plan was going to backfire. Their house was in foreclosure and they had a month to pay off their back payments or they would lose their house. They saved the school loan money and asked all of their friends and family for loans to save their house. No one could loan them any money so they only had 2000 dollars saved up.
Turns out their plan ended up working perfectly. They got their house payments reduced from 1200 a month down to 600 a month because the mortgage company forgave part of their debt and lowered their interest rate to 2%. It gets better. Now because only the husband is working they also qualify for 500 dollars a month in food stamps, the government pays 100 dollars of their electric bill every month, their entire family is now on medicaid with absolutely no deductible of any kind, they might qualify for welfare and the mortgage company forgave the 6 months payments they were behind on. The first thing they did when they found out the mortgage company was forgiving their back payments was spend the 2000 dollars they had saved up, not on bills of course.
To sum it up their mortgage payments have been halved, their 6 months of mortgage payments they were behind on were forgiven, they receive 500 dollars a month in food stamps, 100 dollars a month for their electric bill, the whole family is on medicaid, the kids get free lunches at school, they receive money in school loans and they might also get welfare in the near future. Oh and a year before the husband quit they filed bankruptcy and wrote off close to 70,000 dollars in debt.
This all seems so wrong to me. I have nothing at all against programs such as food stamps or welfare or medicaid but those should be reserved for the truly needy. Those who fell on hard times because their job was eliminated, or they became disabled in a car accident. Not for someone who quit his job because he didn't like it. It's not as if these two are living in some run down shack living off of mac and cheese. They live on the same block I do and it's a good neighborhood. They also own 3 vehicles, they pay upwards of 120 dollars a month for cable and internet, they have a huge 50 inch plasma TV in their living room, each person in the house has their own laptop and the newest version of iphone.
Makes me wonder why I don't quit my job and stop paying my bills and cash in like they did. What I am really wondering is can I do anything about this? I really don't think it's right and wish I could report them for fraud or something but honestly I don't think anything they did was illegal.
The wife today said to me that she did the math and figured that if she got a part time job working 20 hours a week they would lose the food stamps, medicaid and the 100 dollars towards the electric bill so after the 600 dollars they lose out on she figured she'd be working 80 hours a month just to break even and they would all lose out on medical benefits. So she said why should I work? Why work indeed.