On 14 Feb, 08:23, wrote:
On 12 Feb, 21:04, MaxB wrote:

The case reported on the BBC about false tube delay refunds

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7241264.stm

says the offender had made 2000 claims. One wonders how many other
people are making a good living out of this facility.

MaxB

Well here is someone who was even more greedy only more than 7000.
Makes your chap look a bit amaturish
http://londonist.com/2007/12/this_fare_refun.php

This Fare Refund Swindle Has Ceased To Be
We're still wondering whether civil servant, Trushar Patel, is either
a clever sod, just another thieving crook, or a bit of both. Either
way he's spending the next 18 months on the tax payers board and
lodging for: conspiring to procure the execution of a valuable
security. Or, in the long-lasting Queen's English, he swindled London
Underground out of twenty two grand by getting his family to fill in
bogus fare refund forms.

Now we've never bothered filling in one of these forms, but we hear
it's a bit of a bind. So you have to give the guy some credit for the
effort involved. And it only took London Underground noticing that
there were 7,105 claims from the same address for the con to be
rumbled. We're told the claims amounted to an average of 8 per day,
which when balanced out across everyone liable to claim for a delay
who doesn't, is probably quite fair cost wise. Perhaps if he been a
touch more Robin Hood like when laundering the cash.

But what we really love about the story are the comments made by the
Prosecutor regarding the administration of the refund scheme. Not
happy to settle with the Judge's comments that the scheme showed: a
high level of incompetence, Francis Sheridan went one better,
announcing: the administration of this scheme was a complete shambles
of Monty Pythonesque proportions. Anyone wishing to imagine Bob and
Ken once upon a time skipping around the TFL offices, battering each
other with stuffed parrots screaming "Oh no, not the comfy chair"
please feel free.



I'm very glad to hear that both the judge and the prosecutor put the
boot in. The whole thing seems absolutely mind-numbingly incompetent.

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:03:54 -0800 (PST), MaxB
wrote:

On 13 Feb, 02:57, James Farrar wrote:
On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:04:06 -0800 (PST), MaxB
wrote:

The case reported on the BBC about false tube delay refunds

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7241264.stm

says the offender had made 2000 claims. One wonders how many other
people are making a good living out of this facility.

Thanks for posting this - reminded me that I needed to claim for my
journey today

This should be an interesting test of the system, as it happens...

No problem. As a matter of interest (as I a London council tax payer!)
how many claims have you made?

Four last year, this is the third so far this year. If my memory is
accurate!

(The year in question starts on 18th December).

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 18:30:10 on Wed,
13 Feb 2008, Zen83237 remarked:
I wonder why their auditors don't make a point of examining all
multiple
claims for the same person, above some reasonable threshold (a couple
of
dozen a year, perhaps).

You would hope they are doing, after the first high profile fraud
revealed
(in the courts) a few weeks ago. Presumably these cases take quite a few
months to come to trial?

So they would audit everybody claiming over about £50 a year.

Not £50, people making large numbers of claims. They have the figures, so
perhaps just the 1% of "top claimants".

And how much does each audit cost.

All it involves is getting a list of names, addresses and claims, sorted
by the number of claims. Then skim off the top (say) 1%.

Hardly cost effective, why not spend the money stopping the bloody delys
in the first place.

Surely you can agree that having a close look at anyone claiming more than
365 times a year would be a good thing?
--
Roland Perry

But making 365 claims a year would be in excess of £1000, not what was
suggested.

Kevin

In message , at 18:17:57 on
Mon, 18 Feb 2008, Zen83237 remarked:
I wonder why their auditors don't make a point of examining all
multiple claims for the same person, above some reasonable
threshold (a couple of dozen a year, perhaps).

You would hope they are doing, after the first high profile fraud
revealed (in the courts) a few weeks ago. Presumably these cases
take quite a few months to come to trial?

So they would audit everybody claiming over about £50 a year.

Not £50, people making large numbers of claims. They have the figures, so
perhaps just the 1% of "top claimants".

And how much does each audit cost.

All it involves is getting a list of names, addresses and claims, sorted
by the number of claims. Then skim off the top (say) 1%.

Hardly cost effective, why not spend the money stopping the bloody delys
in the first place.

Surely you can agree that having a close look at anyone claiming more than
365 times a year would be a good thing?

But making 365 claims a year would be in excess of £1000, not what was
suggested.

My point was that auditing all claims over £50 might be a bit
over-zealous. Better would be the "top 1%" [by volume], or some other
percentage.
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
Roland Perry wrote:
My point was that auditing all claims over £50 might be a bit
over-zealous. Better would be the "top 1%" [by volume], or some other
percentage.

plus a random sample.

--
Shenanigans! Shenanigans! Best of 3!
-- Flash

In message , at 12:18:11 on Tue,
19 Feb 2008, Mike Bristow remarked:
My point was that auditing all claims over £50 might be a bit
over-zealous. Better would be the "top 1%" [by volume], or some other
percentage.

plus a random sample.

Yes, that would be useful too.
--
Roland Perry