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My husband's mother has received welfare on and off throughout her life. She has always found a way to milk the system or somone. About a year ago, she found out she was the heir to some mineral rights, which yields her about $7000 a month. When she first started receiving this inheritance, she cashed her checks and deposited them into her account. At that time, she was living in a low-income apartment, receiving medicaid, food stamps, fuel assistance, free cell phone -- the whole deal except for cash assistance because she's on social security.
She collected her inheritance for several months before worrying about losing all of her assistance, so she asked her children if they would put the money in a bank account in their name to *hide* it. One of them volunteered to do that and then she signed her inheritance rights over to him, so that the checks are no longer coming in her name. He takes her money out of his account anytime she needs it. She recently bought a car and had some other things done for herself (electrolysis).
Lately, she has been calling my husband asking for advice on ways to avoid getting in trouble for this fraud. Last week, she called and said she received a notice from the housing authority that she has to meet with them to disclose her finances. I believe they do this on a routine basis, but she claims a DIL reported her. She has 12 children.
My husband is sick of the phone calls and sick of the fraud. We both work hard for our money and can't stand the fact that she's using taxpayer money like this. We have talked about reporting her anonymously for welfare fraud, not because we want to see her do time (which they usually don't), but just to make the fraud stop. We are talking about a large amount of money over a long period of time -- $7K per month for 15+ years, according to the company buying the minerals.
So, what would you do? Would you report your own mother?
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