{"id":19497,"date":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/uncategorized\/government-is-now-using-social-media-to-bust-welfare-cheats\/"},"modified":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","slug":"government-is-now-using-social-media-to-bust-welfare-cheats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/news\/government-is-now-using-social-media-to-bust-welfare-cheats\/","title":{"rendered":"The government is now using social media to bust welfare cheats"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>$2 million in fraud has been exposed through the tracking of welfare cheats on social media and eBay, says the federal government.<\/h3>\n<p>The Department of Human Services admits it is now monitoring social media accounts to catch out people incriminating themselves about false spousal or financial arrangements, reports <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailytelegraph.com.au\/news\/nsw\/welfare-fraud-government-hunting-down-cheats-found-through-their-social-media-posts\/news-story\/260eaf6d239066bc0fe42570e5436595\" target=\"_blank\">The Daily Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In one case, two people telling Centrelink they were both single so as to claim double payments were busted when they announced on Twitter they were a couple and had a baby together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government uses a variety of means to catch out welfare cheats, many of whom incriminate themselves on social media,\u201d Human Services Minister Stuart Robert said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy message is simple, if you commit welfare fraud, you will be caught.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The government is now using social media to bust welfare cheats | FIVEAA\" title=\"The government is now using social media to bust welfare cheats | FIVEAA\" class=\"media-element file-default nova-lazyload-image-wrapper lz-cont img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/centre_link_0.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" \/><\/p>\n<h6>The government is now monitoring social media to catch Centrelink cheats<\/h6>\n<h3>As well as Facebook and Twitter, the department is also monitoring eBay to catch welfare recipients who sell assets and don\u2019t declare the income.<\/h3>\n<p>The eBay project alone has so far netted $1.7 million.<\/p>\n<p>In total, Mr Robert said the department\u2019s online tracking had so far identified several million dollars in fraud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have an obligation to the Australian people to protect the integrity of welfare payments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe majority of welfare recipients do the right thing. However, the reality is there are those who deliberately try to game the system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese people need to understand that they are stealing from their neighbours \u2014 including those in the community who are genuinely in need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>SEE ALSO: <a href=\"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/sport\/paying-suspended-power-players-isn-t-essendon-s-problem\">PAYING SUSPENDED PLAYERS IS NOT THE BOMBER\u2019S PROBLEM: RUCCI<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>SEE ALSO: <a href=\"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/lifestyle\/research-suggests-that-being-disorganised-is-actually-a-good-thing\">THIS BAD HABIT ACTUALLY MEANS YOU\u2019RE HIGHLY INTELLIGENT<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>$2 million in fraud has been exposed through the tracking of welfare cheats on social media and eBay, says the federal government. The Department of Human Services admits it is now monitoring social media accounts to catch out people incriminating themselves about false spousal or financial arrangements, reports The Daily Telegraph. In one case, two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[],"geo_market":[],"class_list":["post-19497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The government is now using social media to bust welfare cheats - FIVEAA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/news\/government-is-now-using-social-media-to-bust-welfare-cheats\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The government is now using social media to bust welfare cheats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"$2 million in fraud has been exposed through the tracking of welfare cheats on social media and eBay, says the federal government. The Department of Human Services admits it is now monitoring social media accounts to catch out people incriminating themselves about false spousal or financial arrangements, reports The Daily Telegraph. 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