Pensioner cheat jailed
Date published
May 2015
Relevant impact: Financial impact
A Queensland woman was charged for collecting her late mother’s pension for nearly 20 years which totalled $254,440. The woman’s mother had a separate bank account under a different name which continued to receive payments after her death. The woman regularly withdrew funds from this bank account and updated the address and contact details multiple times over a number of years. The woman was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months imprisonment.
Related fraudster personas
Related Countermeasures
Use declarations or acknowledgments to both communicate and confirm that a person understands their obligations and the consequences for non-compliance. The declaration could be written or verbal, and should encourage compliance and deter fraud.
Set up system prompts and alerts to warn users when information is inconsistent or irregular, which either requires acceptance or denies further actions.
Verify any requests or claim information you receive with an independent and credible source.
Match data with the authoritative source and verify relevant details or supporting evidence.
Services such as the Identity Matching Service can be used to verify identity credentials back to the authoritative source when the information is an Australian or state and territory government issued identity credential.
This countermeasure is supported by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's Guidelines on data matching in Australian government administration.
Require clients, staff and third parties to have ongoing compliance, performance and contract reviews.
These are processes that identify and recover debts owed by staff, customers and third parties.